eGov Magazine | Asia's First Monthly Magazine on e-Governance€¦ · greater detail about the vision of using eGovernance as a key instrument of the state ... The ace team of tech-friendly

4 egov / egov.eletsonline.com / February 2016

FEBRUARY 2016 VOLUME 12 n ISSUE 02

Future Land of Opportunitiesin the Making

COVER STORY

8

eGOV SYMPOSIUM SPECIAL

SHRI PALLE RAGHUNATHA REDDYHon’ble Minister for Information Technology, Andhra Pradesh

J SATYANARAYANAAdvisor - Information Technology, Government of Andhra Pradesh

ePDS: AADHAAR-ENABLED TRANSPARENT & ERROR-FREE PDS

10 12 14

36

CORPORATE

VINAY KUMAR PARATHDirector - Commercial & Govt Sales, NetApp India & SAARC

28

DASARI ANVESHProject Manager (R&D), Efftronics System Pvt Ltd

50 52

NIRAV SHAHPresident, EI Technologies, LLC

AMIT CHOWDRYChief Executive Officer, PeopleLink

22

SPECIAL FEATURE

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE: TIME IS HERE & NOW

24

ENCRYPTION POLICY: TO BE OR NOT TO BE?

46

IOT – THE TOMORROW OF TECHNOLOGY

34

ICT TO MITIGATE NATURE’S FURY

48

BADDI SHINES AS THE PHARMA CAPITAL OF INDIA

56

SPECIAL INTERVIEW

RAM SEWAK SHARMAChairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India

30

G S PHANI KISHORESpecial Secretary, IT, Electronics & Communications Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh

NIKHIL AGARWALCEO, Innovation Society, IT, Electronics & Communications Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh

RATNAKAR JAUHARICEO, eGovernance Authority, IT, Electronics & Communications Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh

16 18 20

DEBASHISH SENPrincipal Secretary, Urban Development Department and CMD - HIDCO, Government of West Bengal

44

Email at [email protected]

to get previous issuesDecember 2015

EDITORIAL

January 2016November 2015

5February 2016 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

he people of Andhra Pradesh might have given away Cyberabad as an elder brotherly gesture to the burgeoning state of Telangana — so tastefully done by their inspiring leader Nara Chandra Babu Naidu, now they have taken upon themselves the building up of India’s first green field Smart City in Amaravati.

Always ahead on the frontiers of Science, Technology and Engineering, the Andhras are scripting the rules of engagement in the digital age. This issue is dedicated to this very shining and serving spirit of the erstwhile land of Satavahanas.

In this special issue of the magazine, Shri Palle Raghunatha Reddy, the Hon’ble Information Technology Minister of the State, lays bare their course(s) of action to make Andhra Pradesh one among the top three states in the country by 2022, No. 1 state in India by 2029 and No. 1 state in the world by 2050.

Also, J Satyanarayana, IT Adviser to the State Government, GS Phani Kishore, Special Secretary - Information Technology, and Ratnakar Jauhari, the ever-persistent and reaffirming Chief Executive of the eGovernance Authority of the Government of Andhra Pradesh explain in greater detail about the vision of using eGovernance as a key instrument of the state policy for a well-rounded growth. The ace team of tech-friendly officials of Andhra have always set the benchmark for others to follow.

In recognition of their efforts, Government of Andhra Pradesh along with Elets Technomedia is organising “eGov Symposium – Andhra Pradesh” in the holy city of Tirupati on January 29. Government officials and policymakers from the State and beyond, and the stakeholders associated with eGovernance and technology domains would gather at the Symposium to share their experiences and suggest the way forward.

Being convened under the spiritual auspices of Lord of Inordinate Resplendence, in all likelihood, the platform would emerge as a trendsetter in further catapulting the emergence of India as a digital society.

Apart from the story of making of the ‘sunrise state’, our team also interacted with Ram Sewak Sharma, the TRAI Chairman and a mission man by all counts, who took his time out to speak at length about his priorities and vision as someone heading the telecom regulatory body.

The silent transformation and change, which the entire deck of technological deployments is bringing about across the nook and cranny of Indian landmass, somewhere vindicates the raison d’être of embarking upon ‘mission eGov’ by the magazine, over a decade back.

We hope to carry forward this audacious journey with you—our readers and contributors—who have made it possible thus far.

RAVI [email protected]

TSunrise @ Amaravati


EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Dr Ravi Gupta

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FEBRUARY 2016VOLUME 12 n ISSUE 02ASIA’S FIRST MONTHLY

MAGAZINE ON E-GOVERNANCE

Write in your reactions to news, interviews, features and articles. You can either comment on the individual webpage of the story, or drop us a mail at [email protected]


I am very happy that Information Technology, Electronics & Communications Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh, in association with Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd, is organising eGov Symposium - Andhra Pradesh on 29 January 2016 at Tirupati.

The eGov Symposium, Andhra Pradesh, acquires special significance in view of the ‘Digital India’ campaign launched by the Union Government, led by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, to make technology enabler of development and various eGov initiatives taken and being taken for the benefit all the citizens across the State by my Government.

I am of firm opinion that IT is the backbone of the economy. As such, soon after assuming office, with the principal task of laying strong foundation for the new State of Andhra Pradesh, the ‘Sunrise State of India’, under the dynamic and visionary leadership of our Hon’ble Chief Minister of the new State of Andhra Pradesh, Shri Nara Chandrababu Naidu garu, we have brought out a comprehensive Blueprint “Re-Imagining Andhra Pradesh – Role of e-Governance, Electronics and IT” for development of Electronics & ICT Industry in the State with a Vision to:“To develop Andhra Pradesh as a knowledge society of global repute, with a focus on enhancing the quality of life of its citizens, through high-quality education and healthcare, increased productivity in agriculture and allied activities, creation of requisite employment potential by promoting electronics and IT industries, and above all, by providing good governance.”

Our aim is to make the new state of Andhra Pradesh No.1 among top 3 states in the country by 2022, No.1 State in the Country by 2029 and Best Investment Destination by 2050 globally. At present, my Department is implementing citizen-centric eGovernance initiatives, such as MeeKosam, MeeBhoomi and e-Office, and streamlined distribution of essential commodities and social pensions through use of the latest technologies. Now the Cabinet Meetings are done through eCabinet – paperless digitised agenda items. Our Hon’ble Chief Minister reviews various developmental programmes through CM Dashboard to ensure that all the programmes of the Government are implemented effectively.

We are currently actively engaged in implementing a unique and first of its kind initiative, ePragati - AP State Enterprise Architecture. ePragati envisages to provide integrated services to all the citizens, through free flow of information and to usher in the area of good governance, by adopting Whole-of-Government approach, aligning the IT infrastructure and IT services of all govt departments to our strategies and services, through standardisation and integration, so as to enhance the quality of life of citizens of the State.

I wish this eGov Symposium, which will have active participation of the industry, academia, and government functionaries, would brainstorm on leveraging technology for improving governance in urban/rural areas, including Health, Education, Banking, Housing, Transport & management of Utilities and services. I further wish that the deliberations arrive at a concrete plan of action, along with specific strategies to successfully implement ePragati not only in the State of Andhra Pradesh but also across the country.

I wish the eGov Symposium, Andhra Pradesh all success and hope that the deliberations would immensely benefit the citizens of the State.

MESSAGE

Minister for Information Technology, Electronics, & Communications, NRI Affairs, Culture, Minority Welfare and Information &

Public Relations, Andhra Pradesh

(DR. PALLE RAGHUNATHA REDDY)

COVER STORY


The creator of ‘Cyberabad’ is at work again, now taking upon himself the task to make the newly-created State ‘the best destination for investment in the world by 2050’. The task is daunting, but given his never-say-die spirit, nothing looks impossible, writes Arpit Gupta & Sudheer Goutham of Elets News Network (ENN)

O ften referred to as the ‘Sun-rise State’, Andhra Pradesh is on the path of becoming one of the top business des-

tinations by 2050, and efforts are on to trans-form the State into an Information Technology, electronics manufacturing and exports hub. The Government has recently signed 328 MoUs across various sectors with an investment of Rs.467,577 crore having a potential to create 9,58,896 employment opportunities.

Business tycoons, heads of IT and manu-facturing companies and prominent people in the industry sector are eyeing the new State, because all resources are available in Andhra Pradesh. It is centrally located and rich in mineral wealth, adequate water, surplus power, best infrastructure and 947-km-long eastern coastline.

In other words, even today Andhra Pradesh is an ideal investment destination, achieving 11 per cent growth rate, which is remark-able for any new state. While all these factors together project Andhra Pradesh as a global

Future Land of Opportunities in the Making

N Chandrababu Naidu Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh

COVER STORY


Model of the layout of People’s Capital of Amaravati

investment destination, the State has its own sets of challenges on the ground. The Govern-ment is trying to overcome these obstacles with all its might.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chan-drababu Naidu says sky is the limit for the leaders of the market, including those who have come forward to invest in the Sunrise State. “I am interested in inclusive growth. We are working to make Andhra Pradesh the best destination for investment in the world by 2050 and will soon emerge as an industrial and innovation hub, too,” he said recently.

The State occupies No. 2 slot in terms of ease of doing business, according to a rating released by the World Bank. “We want to be at No. 1 in the near future,” said the Chief Minister.

The Government wants to make Andhra Pradesh the first State in India in quality and quantity of e-services and aspires to be known

as the silicon corridor of India. It intends to develop Visakhapatnam as a mega IT hub with an IT township over a built-up area of five million sq.ft. Vijayawada, Kakinada and Tirupati would also be developed as IT hubs, as per the government’s scheme of things.

In an interview to Elets News Network, Information Technology Minister of State Palle Raghunatha Reddy said: “The Government of Andhra Pradesh strongly believes that technol-ogy is the backbone of economy. Therefore, soon after resuming the charge as the Chief Minister, Mr Naidu brought a blueprint for holistic development of the State. The vision of the blueprint is to develop it as a knowledge society of global repute with a focus on enhanc-ing the quality of life of citizens through high quality education and healthcare, increasing the productivity in agriculture and allied industries, and creating requisite employment by promot-ing IT and electronics industries in the State.”

Amaravati, the People’s capitalUnder the visionary leadership of the Chief Minister, Amaravati seems set to surpass the other capital cities. Amaravati, described by the government as the “People’s Capital of Andhra Pradesh”, is envisioned to be a city of world-class standards with a vision of increasing State’s prominence in the world. The Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) is leaving no stone unturned to provide cutting-edge infra-structure, comfortable livelihood and immense prosperity for the people of Amaravati. The Land Pooling scheme adopted by Amaravati is the largest and the most successful of its kind in India, and is a manifestation of the people’s desire for a world-class capital. The ‘e-bricks’ initiative is but a natural step in the direction of people’s participation in building a true People’s Capital.

“We have created history as we laid the foundation for our Amaravati, the People’s Capital on 22 October 2015. We aspire to make Amaravati a true people’s capital, a destination of opportunities and a city of the future. Amaravati beckons us to rededicate ourselves in this mission,” said Chandra-babu Naidu.

Holy City – ‘Smart’ TirupatiThe holy city of Tirupati is all set to become a great place to live, work and visit with provi-sion of high quality core infrastructure in an inclusive manner, which is intelligently and efficiently managed by the city agencies to con-vert Tirupati into a smart city. The core focus of the project will be to make the city more secure and safer for its citizens through technological innovations.

IT Hub VizagThe government is developing Vizag as a major IT hub, which will offer plug-and-play facili-ties and attractive investment opportunities. Besides software firms, there is lot of attention on developing hardware parks, facilities for setting up BPOs and R&D facilities. The city will also become a hub for the film industry, and its proximity to Orissa and West Bengal will attract filmmakers from those states, too. There are several scenic locations along the Vizag coast, including Aaraku Valley. The city has an international airport and a seaport an added advantage.

I am interested in inclusive growth. We are working to make Andhra Pradesh

the best destination for investment in the world by 2050 and will soon emerge as an industrial and innovation hub, too- N Chandrababu Naidu

SPECIAL INTERVIEW PALLE RAGHUNATHA REDDY


Andhra Calling

SPECIAL INTERVIEW PALLE RAGHUNATHA REDDY


hat efforts have been made by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology to develop Andhra Pradesh as

the sunrise state of India?Under the dynamic leadership of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, Andhra Pradesh has undertaken a lot of initiatives in the area of Electronics and IT. Before bifurcation, in united Andhra Pradesh, total IT turnover was `65,000 crore with an employment potential of 3.3 lakh. However, after bifurcation, now the employ-ment is only 21,750 with the turnover of `1,600-1,700 crore. So, after the bifurcation, it was a big challenge for us to rebuild the new State into a sunrise state of India.

The Government of Andhra Pradesh strongly believes that technology is the backbone of economy. Therefore, soon after resuming the charge as the Chief Minister, N Chandrababu Naidu brought a blueprint for holistic development of the State. The vision of the blueprint was to develop it as a knowledge soci-ety of global repute with a focus on enhancing the quality of life of citizens through high quality education and healthcare, increas-ing the productivity in agriculture and allied industries, and creating requisite employment by promoting IT and electronics industries in the State.

Keeping that in mind, we have started some activities. We want to make at least one person e-literate in every household of Andhra Pradesh. Similarly, we want to create one entrepreneur in each and every family. We have set a goal to create employment for one lakh people in IT industry and for four lakh people in the electronics industry. We want to attract investments of up to $2 billion in IT industry and $5 billion for the electronics industry by 2019.

How do you view the economic potential of Andhra Pradesh?We are proud to say that Andhra Pradesh is the first State in India in terms of quality and quantity of e-transactions. According to a World Bank report, the State of Andhra Pradesh has been ranked

W

The Government is aiming to make Andhra Pradesh one among the top three states in the country by 2022, No. 1 state in India by 2029 and the No. 1 state in the world by 2050, says Shri Palle Raghunatha Reddy, the Hon’ble Minister of Information Technology, Government of Andhra Pradesh, in an interview with Arpit Gupta & Sudheer Goutham of Elets News Network (ENN)

PALLE RAGHUNATHA REDDY SPECIAL INTERVIEW


as No. 2 state in ease of doing business. Simi-larly, Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of Andhra Pradesh is more than the average GSDP of the country. The current GSDP of country is 7.1. Although after bifurcation, we have faced so many difficulties and challenges, the current GSDP of Andhra Pradesh is 9.71. It will reach double digits with no time.

It is one of the beautiful states in the country with a coastal region of 970km. We have many world famous temples and some of best tour-ism destinations. We have planned to construct 18 airports in the State, out of which some are underway, while some of them have already been completed. There is a lot of scope to invest in Andhra Pradesh, because we have rich talent pool available here. If you want money power, go to America, if you want manpower, go to China and if you want mind power, come to India, primarily Andhra Pradesh. One wouldn’t find this kind of talent pool anywhere in the world. We have 287 degree colleges in the State with annual intake of 2.4 lakh students. Simi-larly, we have 1,238 technical colleges with an annual intake of 3.6 lakh students. Altogether, about 5.6 lakh youths pass out from our educa-tional institutions every year.

How investor-friendly are the IT policies of Andhra Pradesh?We have very good policies for the growth of IT and electronics industries. We have introduced

three policies - IT Policy of 2014, Electronics Policy of 2014 and Innovation Startup Policy of 2014. This kind of policy is rare to find in any other state of the country. We offer so many incentive and facilities regarding land, power, infrastructure and other amenities. Before fram-ing our policies, we had examined all policies in the country. We have taken best out of them and incorporated in our policies. We can say Andhra Pradesh has the best policies for investors, com-pared to other states.

Recently, the University of Texas signed an MoU with the Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society and IC2 to set up a world-class inte-grated incubator at Tirupati and a tripartite Expression of Interest has been signed among Andhra University, AP Innovation Society and MIT FABLAB, for setting up FABLAB at Andhra University.

The government has unveiled single-window system for speedy issuance of necessary per-missions to enable these companies to open their units at the earliest. We are expecting more growth of IT in Andhra Pradesh, because we have our CM as the icon and the brand ambas-sador. He is the best asset to AP. He is not a politician but a statesman.

What kind of response are you getting in attracting investments to Andhra Pradesh – a new State?After taking charge as the IT Minister, I have given permission to 37 companies with invest-ment of `6,000 crore and they are providing employment to 50,000 candidates. We are expecting more foreign investors in Andhra Pradesh. Moreover, we have introduced a special type of project - ePragati. This is first of its kind project in the country, in particular, South-East Asia. Among 186 countries, only 10 countries have adopted this kind of eProject. We will com-plete this project within a span of 24 months. Under this project, we are coordinating and integrating all 318 departments under the Gov-ernment of Andhra Pradesh.

With the total investment of `3,165 crore, the government has recently signed 63 MoUs with small and medium sector players in the IT sector. Many countries are keen to invest in Andhra Pradesh because of the ease of doing business in the State, its sound policies, rich talent pool of skilled professionals and efforts to provide 4G network in the entire State in two to three years and emphasis on eGovernance.

What are your future plans?We are extending the net facility of 4G to every nook and corner of the State at a cost of `4,300 crore. Each and every village will be covered under this scheme. We are also developing our beautiful capital city Amravati with an estimated cost of `10,000 crore. These are the important projects we are implementing in the State. So, this is the right time and appropriate time to invest in Andhra Pradesh.

If you want money power, go to

America, if you want manpower, go to China and if you want mind power, come to India, primarily Andhra Pradesh. One wouldn’t find this kind of talent pool anywhere in the world

Shri Palle Raghunatha Reddy, Hon’ble Minister of Information Technology, Government of Andhra Pradesh


INITIATIVE ePDS

The Department of Food and Civil Supplies, Government of Andhra Pradesh, is laying emphasis on weeding out bogus ration cards with the help of technology-based solutions combined with seeding of Aadhaar to improve the delivery of food grains and commodities to the poor in the State, writes Arpit Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN)

A ndhra Pradesh State Public Distribution System is comprised of 3.85 crore beneficiaries (BPL card holders)

and 28,599 Fair Price Shops (ration shop) spreading across all the 13 districts. The beneficiaries are issued smart ration card or Aadhaar-based household card that contains the UID number, demography and biometric details of each family member with a thumbnail photograph of every person in the family.

Smart ration cards enable the beneficiaries to make transactions at Fair Price Shops with a hand-held PoS machine. Keeping in mind the delivery of food grains to the authentic beneficiaries, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has directed the officials to install iris-recognition equipment, and bio-metric and finger print-enabled ePOS machines in all Fair Price Shops (FPS) across the State.

Y Vishwanath, Senior Consultant (Techni-cal) and Head of PDS Aadhaar Linking Project, said, “As many as 7,595 ePOS devices-cum-elec-tronic weighing machines have been installed at Fair Price Shops in the State. Besides, we have ePDS and Supply Chain Management system to ensure delivery of commodities and monitor-ing at all levels, i.e. FCI godowns, Mandal Level Storage (MLS) and FPS.”

Since the Aadhaar numbers are linked with ration cards, the government has identified 67 lakh bogus units so far and eliminated all ghost ration cards. “We have also been able to crackdown on non-active card holders, who are not drawing any ration and the same member is listed in many ration cards,” he added.

The transactions happening in Fair Price Shops automatically get updated in the server through GPRS. Since it is a transparent mecha-

nism, the government is further working on establishing inter-district portability, giving ben-eficiaries an opportunity to collect ration from any district.

“When a beneficiary goes to the Fair Price Shops, he needs to give his smart ration card number, and as his number is entered in the system, his eligibility for the particular month is displayed. The inventory also gets updated at FPS, MLS and FCI godown,” he said.

Aadhaar-Enabled Transparent & Error-Free PDS

FACTS about PDSl The Public Distribution System (PDS) means distribu-tion of essential commodities to a large number of people through a network of Fair Price Shops on a recurring basis. It facilitates supply of food grains and essential commodities at subsidised prices.l With a network of more

than 51,879 lakh Fair Price Shops claiming to distribute annually commodities worth more than `15,000 crore to about 30 crore families, the PDS in India is perhaps the largest distribution network of its type in the world.l There are two stages of transportation of PDS commodities for reaching

the stock up to the doorsteps of the Fair Price Shop dealers. Transportation from FCI godowns and sugar factories to MLS points is known as Stage-I transporta-tion, and transportation from MLS points to Fair Price Shops is known as Stage-II transportation.

Y Vishwanath, Senior Consultant

(Technical) and Head of PDS-

Aadhaar Linking Project

SPECIAL INTERVIEW J SATYANARAYANA


ePragati for Transparent, Effective Governance

ePragati project of Andhra Pradesh, being looked upon as a model in Government Enterprise Architecture in India, is being implemented with the philosophy of ‘Centralised Planning-Decentralised Implementation’. J Satyanarayana, Advisor to the Andhra Pradesh Government for Information Technology and the brain behind ePragati, throws light on finer aspects of the ambitious project in an interaction with Sudheer Goutham & Arpit Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN)

Pragati or Andhra Pradesh State Enterprise Architecture

(APSEA) is being looked upon as a model in Government Enterprise Architecture in India. What steps have you taken for the implementation of such an ambitious project? ePragati is aimed at bringing together 745 G2B (Government to Business), G2C (Government to Citizens), G2E (Government to Employ-ees) and G2G (Government to Government)

services offered by 33 departments and more than 300 government agencies. We are going into finer detail of the project, so that we can start selection of partners, though we need to balance the need for urgency and transparency while observing the procedures. Also, in the consideration are striking balance in several factors, such as importance and validity of big players, new entrants, startups and MSMEs. So, the balance between the cost products, official products, dual products and solutions are underway.

We also need to balance between big appli-cations and mobile-based apps, which will fetch good results. In addition, we also have

to balance and provide space for innovative products and innovations around ePragati. So, we are considering all these while making the tender documents and R&D documents. All these factors in these documents will then go to the market.

What are the priorities in consideration to make ePragati an apt programme in the long run?We are in the process of chiselling the business models for each product, as installing a good set of software and hardware will make working easier. However, we also need to have a finan-cially viable project and a set of services that will

J SATYANARAYANA SPECIAL INTERVIEW


add value for citizens, government departments and its employees. It should make economic sense to them in a sustainable manner, or else it will not be sustainable either in the medium or long term. Various factors like creating the value proportion and selling it, along with the thought process, are going into its making.

ePragati is a huge project that needs to be worked upon within various departments. How are the government functionaries being pre-pared for its adaption in their day-to-day work? It is a very important aspect of taking the over-all ownership with various line departments within the government, along with creating a necessary capacity to absorb such a big project in a short period; otherwise, it will become very difficult to regain position at a later stage. So, alongside these procurement exercises, we need to mount efforts on the sensitisation of these functionaries at various levels. The basic philosophy of ePragati is “Centralised Planning and Decentralised Implementation”. As we are in the implementation stage, so it is necessary that we are clear about the principle. We need to reinforce and reiterate it at every possible point.

What is your strategy for Centralised Planning and Decentralised Implementation of ePragati?ePragati central team would do the designing and architecture at a higher level. However, the detailed design features and implementation on day-to-day basis will be the responsibility of nodal departments identified by each pack-age of the programme. So, we will be providing every kind of support to nodal departments. The idea is not to make a centralised implemen-tation, or else it will crash. So, for decentralised kind of implementation, we are working with the departments and engaging them at various points. However, increasingly the ownership is being passed on to the various departments and that is the way it should be. We are also for-mulating steering committees, with the key line departments involving heads of departments and key functionaries. Implementation will be of key department and not just IT Department, and this way it will be a parallel implementation by various departments but conforming to cer-tain basic principles ingrained in ePragati.

ePragati is going to provide several citizen services, though with a nominal fee. Do

you think people would like to pay for it? ePragati is a comprehensive architecture to leverage the latest advances in eGovernance tools. It will move away the piecemeal approach and provide an integrated ’One Governance’ that will be citizen-centric, transparent and effective. If services are provided in hassle-free manner, people would be happy to pay `10-20. It has been evident in case of ePassport Seva that was introduced with a minimal charge. How-ever, ePragati services are not completely based on revenue mechanism. It is only in a few cases.

How would ePragati provide opportunities to startups, SMEs and big companies?There is a provision for Medium, Small and Minor Enterprises in ePragati. However, for big companies, there are good opportunities based on the experience. With ePragati, things can be taken further.

When can we see the complete rollout of ePragati?At present, we are rolling out all the RFPs of January and we will get to see early results by mid-2016, and by the end of the year, we can see ePragati in full play.

Another ambitious project—Andhra Pradesh Fiber Grid—is said to become an integral part of ePragati. Can you elaborate on that?Andhra Pradesh Fibre Grid is a highly scalable aerial network infrastructure to provide on demand end-to-end broadband connectivity to every household, includ-ing rural areas via electric poles. To begin with, it will cover over 600 km and target-ing three districts, Srikakulam Vizianagarm and Vishakapatnam, and then expand to remaining 10 districts. The work is on at a fast pace. It has two aspects— accessibility and literacy. Besides mobiles, tablets and computers, we are working on giving the access via television sets, which is available in most of the households. There are about 85 million households in the State. The second aspect is literacy and its content. When infrastructure is available, knowing its utility is important for people. We are working on that drive and providing content in three priority areas — agriculture, health and education. Currently, on ground, these three areas are being covered by three con-sortiums and the response has been good. Gradually, the work will be taken up by these consortiums on full scale.

ePragati is a comprehensive architecture to leverage the latest advances in

eGovernance tools. It will move away the piecemeal approach and provide an integrated ’One Governance’ that will be citizen-centric, transparent and effective

SPECIAL INTERVIEW G S PHANI KISHORE


AP Setting New Benchmarks in IT

Under the leadership of a Chief Minister, who rigorously promotes technology for socio-economic development of the State, the Andhra Pradesh IT Department has become an early adapter of technologies. G S Phani Kishore, Special Secretary, IT, Electronics & Communications Department, lays out the IT road map for the State before Sudheer Goutham and Arpit Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN)

How can Andhra Pradesh stand up to become the leader in IT and eGovernance to reach out to its

people? Information Technology is no more lim-ited to IT and ITeS alone. We have trifur-cated the entire IT Department. The first pillar is IT and ITeS, the traditional strong line, and the second one is the innova-tion startup ideation incubation. We have created space for innovation society in

Andhra Pradesh. We are about to sign an historic MoU with the IC2 incubator of the University of Texas in Austin, which is the biggest incubator in the world. They are going to set up an incubation facility in Tirupati. This is the first time we are going to have that kind and scale of incubation activity happening in the State. We have also signed an MoU in Boston with MIT to have first fab lab in Asia and this will come up in Vizag.

All this has been possible because of renewed focus on the way the things have to be done. Under the initiatives of these societies, which

have actually taken the control, we as the government have taken the role of the facilita-tor. We have also created a society under the supervision of CEO IT and ITeS for promotion. We have hired an experienced person from the industry to execute the plans of promoting IT and ITeS. Intention of getting people from the market is because they know the pulse of indus-try better and also about what is happening in the market. We have visualised Vizag as IT and ITeS capital of the State, while Incubation and Startup will be in Tirupati.

As the third pillar of IT Department, we have created eGovernance Society in the new

H

G S PHANI KISHORE SPECIAL INTERVIEW


capital region of Vijayawada. With the launch of ePragati, for the first time we have created State as an entity. We have planned State Level Enterprise activities. Keeping that in picture, we want to create hubs. Singapore and Hong Kong, two small nations, don’t have as many hubs as we are planning to have here. It’s `2,540cr project and not a single state in India has actually ventured in this kind of project. We will be 10th nation state in the world to have experimented this kind of project. The entire project is on PPP model. We are about to launch RFPs. Target is stiffer as we have to deliver the project in 24 months. Technocrats, developers and the people, who are willing to participate in the story and glory of Andhra Pradesh, this is the time for them to come, col-laborate, join and invest in one of its kind of huge project in the world.

I can proudly say that Andhra Pradesh being the early adapter of technology, it is an imple-menting state, while most other states in the country are still thinking of doing it. Through various technology initiatives like ePragati, Aerial Fiber Grid and others, we are working towards taking the government to the door-steps of the citizens in line with a campaign - “Maa Prabhutvam Mee inti Mungata”, meaning “Our Government at Your Doorstep”.

Can you elaborate on “Maa Prabhutvam Mee inti Mungata”? In a first, the Andhra Pradesh Govern-ment is set to provide access to Internet and broadband connection even to the remote areas of the State through Aerial Fiber Grid. This will be a key step in taking all the eGovernance services to the rural household. The Aerial Fiber Network rides overhead on the existing electricity poles. In the first phase, connections will be provided to 1.3 crore households in the State. There are 3.6 lakh poles and 2,600 substations spread around 23,000 km. Our government is working to complete rolling this out at the earliest.

How does ePragati initiative of AP Government, considered a role model in the Government Enterprise Architecture in India, serve the citizens? ePragati will enable people in the State to avail government services and schemes of 33 departments and over 300 agencies

under one roof. It revolves around seven missions, five grids and five campaigns, which include Aerial Fiber Grid (to all gram panchayats), AP State Data Centre (to host all the data and applications), e-Highway (to seamlessly connect all the departments digitally), People Hub (to house all the socio-economic data of the citizens of the State, which will be used to implement welfare schemes and develop-ment programmes), Lab Hub (that con-tains details of all types of land parcels in the State), Dial AP (a unified contact/call centre that the citizens can use to access a wide range of services), e-Learning plat-form (that provides learning and online material/ education aid to enhance quality of education), Social Benefits Management System (that includes all benefits schemes), APcan (comprehensive system for man-agement of cancer), mSeva (a platform for providing a wide range of citizen services on mobile), e-AgriMarket (a platform that enables farmers to sell their produce online to get the best price) and e-Pan-chayat (enhances efficiency of Panchayati Raj institutions).

Tell us about the ‘certificate-less’ governance that the AP Government has announced to roll out in the next few months. Unlike the conventional way, where an individual—be it a farmer, student, employee, employer or any citizen—

needed to carry certificates or government documents, certificate-less governance will do away with it. Aadhar will be the single source of information for all of it. Issuing of routine certificates, such as residence, income, nativity, date of birth, caste and land documents will be stopped. In the next few months, government will stabi-lise the ‘People Hub’ and ‘Lab Hub’ and most of the linkage and authentication will be done. As part of certificate-less governance, the Revenue Department has already done away with routine certifi-cates. If any department or person needs a certificate, they can simply send a query to the data hub.

What security measures are taken when the entire data of an individual is available online?Chances of data leakage is nil in the system. Bulk data is not available to the end-users. They can only access by feed-ing a particular number or name and then get the details. Besides, a govern-ment official concerned or sanctioning authority of a pension or fertiliser subsidy can access the data to know the eligibility of the applicant. The public data available with various departments can be accessed by anyone, depending on how much a particular department would share. We don’t have biometric data with us. Even the Smart Pulse survey will not collect biometric data.

Andhra Pradesh Government will develop Vizag as an IT hub, providing plug-and-play facilities.

SPECIAL INTERVIEW RATNAKAR JAUHARI


eGovernance for Well-Rounded Growth

With a number of eGovernance initiatives being undertaken by the Government of Andhra Pradesh, the State has set the benchmark for others to follow. Ratnakar Jauhari, CEO, eGovernance Authority, IT, Electronics & Communications Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh, tells Nirmal Anshu Ranjan, Arpit Gupta and Akanki Sharma of Elets News Network (ENN) how these initiatives have been helping in the overall growth of the State. Excerpts:

P Government has been a pioneer in eGovernance initiatives. Recently,

e-Pragati has been launched. How is it helping citizens and which all sectors does it cover?The Government of Andhra Pradesh is deter-mined to leverage its strength in IT to provide anytime, anywhere citizens services. ePragati is a first-of-its-kind initiative in India and we are the first State to do it. It is an all encompassing system, where government is available on a click; it’s an IT-based solution for the various departments. It is an enterprise digital platform

that aims to bring together 745 services offered by 33 departments and more than 315 govern-ment agencies in the State.

The idea is that citizen is there to avail the services of the government, and the government as such is taking information from the citizen and then giving it back only. For instance, if I am a citizen and my date of birth and place of birth is taken, by the government for record; after five years, I again go to the same government and ask for my birth certificate. Then, after six months, I again have to go to the govern-ment for domicile certificate. So, it’s my own information for which I have to go to the government again and again. Thus, the solution is that all the data will be saved in

the system and it will be interlinked. It’s not that a transport department wants informa-tion, then the same information is required by civil supplies, and the person has to provide this again and again. So, that is the basic premise for taking ePragati further. Issues like speed, cloud enablement, paper-less governance, certificate-less governance, etc., are there. In countries like, South Korea, Singapore and the US, a lot has been done on these lines. So, it is a good project which is the need of the society now and we are doing it in Andhra.

Cashless PDS is another example introduced in the country, which other states must follow. What is

A

RATNAKAR JAUHARI SPECIAL INTERVIEW


cashless PDS and how is it being implemented?In cashless Public Distribution System (PDS), a person needs not pay cash. For instance, a person needs some ration every month, oil, rice and pulses, etc, and there is some fixed amount of monthly quota. So, if a person has an Aadhaar number, he/she might go to the shop and tell his/her unique identity number, then automatically the quota will be reflected in the computer as to he/she has taken how much of allotted quota and how much is remaining, etc. Then, it will be adjusted through my bank account, as under eKYC, Aadhaar is linked to the bank accounts. It will be automatically detected through biometrics like iris and finger prints. We are planning to launch it on a pilot basis.

Would you like to mention any other initiative in the recent time that was a big success?There were a number of initiatives. One has been e-Cabinet, where the Cabinet has

been taken on computers and all submis-sion of files, etc. is on computer. The second is mobile MeeSeva, which is in other states as well. Thinking about another unique initiative, it is ePermit system, wherein my department gives permission on net-based support and even payment is done through Internet. It is done for the permits of worth `100 crore of mineral and has been very successful also, reducing a number of bogus things. Further, it has streamlined the whole process bringing in the transpar-ency as well as efficiency.

Thereafter, the Government launched eOffice – A Digital Work Place Solution

that aims to support governance by using more effective and transparent inter- and intra-government processes. The need for transforming conventional government offices into more efficient and transparent e-offices, and eliminating huge amounts of paperwork has long been felt.

That apart, eSuvidha project is the eGov-ernance initiative of the Municipal Admin-istration and the Urban Development Department, aimed at computerisation of urban local bodies (ULBs) in the State. The eSuvidha project was conceptualised to provide an IT platform to all the ULBs under the purview of the Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administra-tion (C&DMA) office. The objective of the project was to develop an integrated state-wide solution across all municipalities in the State as part of GoAP’s eGovernance initiatives.

MeeSeva, the eGovernance project of the Revenue & Registration Depart-ment, offers citizens a bouquet of 309 high-volume services from 32 depart-ments through 4,070 MeeSeva kiosks. The project has already completed 3.5 crore transactions and will soon reach four crore mark. The target is to ensure that MeeSeva becomes the entry and exit point for the citizens to approach the Government for any service. MeeSeva centers are now also providing Business Correspondent Services for various banks and achieving financial inclusion for the citizens.

Ratnakar Jauhri stands flanked by Elets Technomedia CEO Dr Ravi Gupta (Left) and SIDBI CMD K Shivaji at 3rd Annual Financial Inclusion & Payment Systems Summit in New Delhi recently.


INITIATIVE NIKHIL AGARWAL

Can you give an outline of the Innovation and Startup Policy of Andhra Pradesh on which you want to

make it big? In order to encourage innovation, the AP Government has endorsed an Innovation and Startup Policy 2014-2020 that supports startups with innovation funds of `100 crore. The Government is targeting to incubate 500 startups by the end of December 2015, and 5,000 by 2020. The Government will reimburse to the incubators or the investors 15 per cent of the seed capital infused into a startup based out of the State. The idea is to create an ecosystem to produce an entrepreneur in every family and at least one homegrown billion-dollar technology startup.

Which are the specific areas that the State Government has focused in the policy?We have identified five key areas, including shared infrastructure, accelerators/incubators, human capital, funding and good governance, which would support the State as part of its policy for innovation. These areas cover IT, electronics and all other sectors. At present, the Government has made about one million sqft of incubation infrastructure available in Vizag, Kakinada, Tirupati and Anantapur. It is creating another 3,00,000 sqft of additional space in the vicinity of the Vizag Startup Village. The physical infrastructures are being developed through the public private partnership (PPP) mode. Also, the new incubation infrastructure development fund

been asked to give merit to students who have successfully completed notified online courses as part of the State Government’s plan to boost human capital. Further, to encourage techno-preneurs, the universities would be introducing the concept of Student-Entrepreneurs in Residence, wherein outstanding students, who wish to pursue entrepreneurship, can take break of one year after the first year to pursue entrepreneurship full time. This period, popularly known as gap-period, may be extended to two years, and these two years will not be counted in the time taken for completing graduation.

How are the universities in the State complementing the Innovation & Startup Policy?All the universities in State may give five per cent grace marks and 20 per cent attendance every semester for student startup teams, which have at least one woman as a co-founder. Students’ startups from the very first year of college may be allowed to convert their projects as final-year project. These proposals may be implemented by the universities with immediate effect.

How will be the projects and startups be financially supported?Besides the initial innovation fund of `100 crore, an amount of `1,000 crore will be mobilised as venture capital and that will offer shared infrastructure, accelerators/incubators, human capital and funding for startups. The VC Fund, however, will invest in startups directly and will be professionally managed like a PE/Venture Fund.

Andhra Pradesh is leaving no stone unturned to establish itself as the

innovation capital of India, and its Innovation and

Startup Policy has been designed accordingly,

tells Nikhil Agarwal, CEO, Innovation Society, ITE&C Department, to Sudheer Goutham of Elets News

Network (ENN)

will be set up under the innovation mission as a revolving fund.

‘Innovation capital’ means a huge talent pool. How does the Government plan to attract talent to the State?Even if the talent and innovators are from outside Andhra Pradesh and are interested in moving into the State, they will be supported. Besides, huge talent, innovators and entrepreneurs will be from within the State. In the Government’s plan, students and universities in the State figure high. In the process, the Government has called upon the universities to change the curriculum in tune with the emerging technologies and requirements of the industry. The universities have also

An Innovation Capital in the Making

INITIATIVE NIKHIL AGARWAL

CORPORATE AMIT CHOWDRY


Reaching Out to Masses, Visually

hat is the extent of PeopleLinks’s footprints, both in India and beyond?

PeopleLink has been in the industry for the last eight years, both in India as well as globally. Currently, we are looking forward to partnering with the Government of India on a larger scale and making sure that we are partnering with them for a perfect ‘Digital India’ launch.

What is the company’s vision with regard to the ‘Digital India programme?The Digital India programme is a very huge programme, which is going to take five to 10 years for full implementation. Two major areas that the Government is focussing on are — making sure that education reaches the remot-est villages and getting the best teachers for the students there; and to get the best doctors to the remotest villages. Moreover, we have aligned our company’s goals with the government’s vision. For instance, we were purely a video conferencing services company until a couple of years back, but in the last 18 months, we have transformed ourselves: we now offer the right platform for convergence of both, healthcare and education services. Video conferencing is the technology that can take both initiatives to the target audience.

There are two paradigms in the Digital India initiative: finding connectivity to the remotest village and reaching there fast. So, the only way of making it fast is using a technology, which

W

As the twin concepts of distance learning and telemedicine take shape in India, PeopleLink gears up to bridge the gap between services and citizens through video conferencing. PeopleLink Chief Executive Officer Amit Chowdry, in an interview with Sudheer Goutham & Akanki Sharma of Elets News Network (ENN), dwells at length on how they are customising their solutions to fulfil specific needs of various sectors

AMIT CHOWDRY CORPORATE


can actually work in the current scenario. We will ensure that even at low bandwidth, we pro-vide the best audio-video quality, so that both doctors and teachers sitting at distances can offer their services to the people in villages. We have been offering this service for quite a few years now.

With connectivity and speed in focus, we are launching our latest healthcare initiative — Peoplecare. It is going to be our complete end-to-end customised healthcare platform, which will focus on having a complete doctor-patient interaction. Anyone can come onto this plat-form and look at the doctor available, schedule an appointment, pay online and start availing the service right away.

Which all places or states in India have your initiatives been already launched?We have a lot of healthcare implementations. Within Andhra Pradesh itself, we have Call-Health, one of the leading companies in the healthcare domain. There are lots of health workers spread across diferent villages of Andhra Pradesh and they have developed these health kits, which they use and they are getting enabled using our platform only, because our platform was tested against all the video con-ferencing platforms. It was found that it uses very low bandwidth of 40 to 60 kbps, while they would do a remote consultation using android and windows tabs and do live consultations with some doctors sitting here. Apart from that,

in many of the hospitals like Apollo, we have implemented our video conferencing services for different purposes.

And what about smart classes?We have lots of implementation in education.

For instance, one of the implementations that we are doing right now is for IIT-Gandhinagar, where we are deploying the complete custom-ised e-learning platform that comprises all the advanced tools for e-learning. We have lots of implementations in places like National Police Academy in Hyderabad itself. It is using our e-learning platform for conducting live classes at various police academies across the country. Also, there are so many private institutes and government agencies, which are using our solu-tions for live interaction. Earlier, video confer-encing was the only way of communicating for education. But now, we have added a few more

features to make it more collaborative.

Are your services also linked with any other programme of the government, especially like the one addressing maternity mortality rate?We are closely following the government policies and adding more features

to our solutions, in line with the government focus of reaching out to the masses and getting them the benefits. So, we are quite open and have been talking to the government for dif-ferent verticals. For instance, we are building a customised business system for the Govern-

ment of Jharkhand. And, once we start getting feedback from various government depart-ments, we would know what extra features are needed for specific needs. Thus, customisation is one of the biggest aspects that we are going to work on. We are also trying to understand what the government wants.

Both Central and state government are focussing on smart cities, and every state will have a certain number of smart cities. What role can PeopleLink play in this regard?There are two concepts that we are trying to bridge through technical solutions, which will basically help in making smart cities run smoothly. One is the security aspect, so that smart cities have high-end security cameras; as and when they need a seamless video con-ferencing platform for an inter-city communi-cation, it is there to connect them. Secondly, in every smart city, there is going to be a com-mand centre. The command centre concept is basically about having everything controlled from one ‘smart room’. We are building a unique touch panel system, which will control complete lighting and other activities in smart cities, including certain applications in indi-vidual homes, at the push of a button on mobile phones. The same mobile app controller can be used for logging into the video conferencing as well. So, we are trying to give a complete, converged solution to help the proposed smart cities gain maturity.

District offices interact with Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Kerala Chief Minister Oomen Chandy through PeopleLink’s video conferencing facility at an event to mark Idukki becoming the first district to get hi-speed broadband under NOFN early last year.

SPECIAL FEATURE BUSINESS MODEL


At a time when India is looking beyond poverty and sustainability and is trying hard for an inclusive growth of the country, self-sufficiency becomes crucial for socio-economic development of the people. Now is the time for Social Enterprises in India, where the power of business is used to fulfil the needs of the deprived sections of the people, so as to bring social change in true sense, writes Sudheer Goutham of Elets News Network (ENN)

T he difference between Charity and Social Enterprise is that unlike in the first, in the latter, business skills are used, risks are understood and also has the element of profit, while the difference between Social Enterprise and a Commercial Busi-

ness is that the latter is guided only by profit considerations.Social enterprise can be rigorous effective and business-like, but the outcomes are

amazing. Their success is measured in terms of how much impact they make on the social side.

All social entrepreneurs have inspiration and vision, and are largely guided by their passion. A social enterprise gets much more significance when it works for those who are most neglected and exploited by the mainstream society.

Vat Vrikshya is one such social business organisation based in Odisha that works in the remote rural areas with marginalised women and Adivasi communities. The organisation has operations in four major tribal districts of Odisha, which are part of India’s ‘starvation corridor’, have highest rates of poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy, infant and mother mortality rates, and school dropout rates.

Social Enterprise Time is Here & Now

Handicraft products made by tribal communities

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SPECIAL FEATURE BUSINESS MODEL


“We primarily focus on creating alternative means of earning for tribal communities to ensure that families are able to meet their basic needs. We allocate an initial fund of `2,000, to which each family adds further sum according to their capac-ity. The initial capital is low, but because of their skills, beneficiaries – mostly women – are able to generate income which is three to four times higher than that,” says the founder of Vat Vrikshya, a soft-ware engineer by profession but chose to work for the tribal communities.

Of the total profit earned by them, 10 per cent of each business goes to Vat Vrikshya fund, which is maintained by 12 representative women from the same tribal communities.

Pratisthita, Vat Vrikshya Co-founder and organ-iser of community events, says, “The Vat Vrikshya fund again goes for the betterment of the tribal communities, particularly in health and educa-tion. Representatives from each village/unit help us analyse the problems they are facing and keep track of the improvements. We maintain a monthly data, including that of improvement in children’s weight (one-month old infants to five-year old), school enrolment and dropout rates, variation in family income, agriculture production, etc. Based on these data, we set a target for the next month.”

Other projects of Vat Vrikshya include counsel-ing about government services for financial inclu-sion, like opening accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana, subsidies and loans,

home-based mushroom farming, which does not require much effort but can generate a good income, and vocational training.

Anisha Das, Co-founder and strategist for Vat Vrikshya, says, “India has such a robust and vibrant civil society and it has a very important role to play in fuelling the resilient dynamism agenda of India. One of the things that I get discouraged about is our civil society often complains about problems. Instead of leaving societal needs to the government

or business sectors, our people can actually solve the problem by changing the system. With the cur-rent economic climate, it is very likely that social needs will increase and, consequently, the number of people committed to addressing them should increase as well.

Even social workers, who want to see social changes by supporting the weavers and farmers and have understood the importance of social enterprise, are prepared to don the new role to sus-tainable platform for the needy.

Saraswati Kavula, a social worker and a docu-mentary film-maker, supports weavers and farmers by organising open markets—Chenetha Santha expo for weavers—for their products, connecting them directly with customers.

After realizing the importance of social enter-prise, she wants to create a sustainable platform for weavers and farmers that would continue in long run. Currently, she is working towards creation of a platform which could be self-sustainable.

“The Idea is not to depend on funding…one doesn’t have to be answerable to the funders. I have seen a lot of NGO structures. Presently, through such market platforms, we are creating a direct interface between weavers and customers. Now, we are working on building a proper business firm. We are using a profit margin of 10-15 per cent, not exceeding 20 per cent in any case, which will again go towards the future endeavors of the system,” says she adds.

Explaining the present handloom markets, Saraswati observes that in government exhibitions, there is a lot of mismanagement, where power loom products, which are the replica of handloom

Social enterprise can be rigorous effective and business-like, but the outcomes are amazing. Their success is measured in terms of how much impact they make on the social side

Tribal women associated with Vat Vrikshya at work

Saraswati Kavula, a social worker and a documentary film-maker, who organises Chenetha Santha expo, exhibits handmade clothes at the expo

SPECIAL FEATURE


BUSINESS MODEL

material, are sold. “And, the real problem is that the replicated ones are sold at much cheaper prices, due to which consumers are cheated, while at the same the time, real handloom weavers are deprived of their market. Adding to their woes is the fact that in real handloom expos, due to numerous interme-diaries, the product becomes expensive and gets out of the reach of customers. If reasonably priced, people can buy genuine handlooms,” she says.

However, Aruna Reddy, Head, Centre for Entre-preneurship, Indian School of Business, observes that now the concept of social enterprise is evolv-ing and the definition has become much broader, unlike in the past when the target people were those who fall in the below poverty line category.

“Currently, a social enterprise can be a trust or a company — private or public limited company. If you look at the trends, most of them are into educa-tion, agriculture or basically related to green-power technology. Most of them have been successful and quite a few have been for profit ventures. How they measure success is what creates the impact in the sector they are into.”

On asking about the successful models of social enterprise in India, Aruna Reddy says, “There are quite a few, about 20-21 ventures that I personally incubated in ISB, Hyderabad. The top two-three are

all social enterprise business models. Here, social enterprise refers to those, which are taking care of energy needs and they are creating a social impact.

Apart from getting real good investments, they are making good revenues as well.

“For example, there are route optimisation ventures. In these ventures, routes, especially when people want to go from one place to other, like Hyderabad to Bangalore, there is a lot of dependency on corporate cabs. So, these ventures work on the shortest routes possible. They also take into consideration the data of traffic, fuel consumption and time taken. So, they look at all these data and track, analyse and optimise the use of time consumed as well as the costs involved. Through this new approach, companies, people and the country at large are benefitting.”

Realising the importance of social enterprise structure, even the Central and state governments are promoting these ideas, she observed.

In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states, the governments have created policies for such social business ideas and are becoming the first clients when they are convinced that these ventures would benefit people and the government..

Aruna Reddy, ISB, Hyderabad

A tribal weaver at work

A weaver exhibits handmade cloths material at the handicraft expo - Chenetha Santha

Vat Vrikshya foudner, Vikash Das, examinines the handicraft products

before sending them off to market

All social entrepreneurs have inspiration and vision, and are largely guided by their passion. A social enterprise gets much more significance when it works for those who are most neglected and exploited by the mainstream society

VINAY KUMAR PARATHCORPORATE


Even as past the few years saw emergence of numerous buzz around technologies and processes, in the current year and in a few years to come, Social, Cloud computing, Analytics and Mobility (SMAC) are going to be the key drivers of economy, writes Vinay Kumar Parath, Director - Commercial & Government Sales, NetApp India & SAARC

T

emerging technologies can nonetheless obscure the true impact they have on agency efficiency, productivity and cost savings.

The years 2014 and 2015 witnessed the emer-gence of numerous buzz around technologies and processes, but four of these, in particular, have the potential to evolve from concept and early-stage usage to more widespread adoption if government contractors and federal IT pro-viders can effectively communicate the benefits these technologies can deliver.

Internet of ThingsData is the cornerstone of enterprise-wide oper-ations at the centre, state and local government levels. With the government’s push towards ‘Digital India’, the special-purpose clouds and applications will emerge to focus specifically on connecting devices and machines.

This in turn will generate a huge amount of data that will need to be processed and anal-ysed in real time. The sheer volume of data and the velocity at which it is generated, altered and consumed will threaten to overwhelm traditional storage architecture. Adding to this, budgets will never be able to keep pace with data volume, requiring solutions to become more efficient and cost-effective in storing data. An inability to analyse and store data as volume explodes reduces sensor devices to little more than “window dressing” that offers little value to decision makers.

In order to manage staggering amounts of structured and unstructured data, the govern-ment needs to put in place a robust storage architecture. Tiered storage architecture can help government departments organise data-based sensitivity of information, importance and accessibility.

Hybrid CloudIt is safe to say that some government bodies used the cloud in 2015 in some form. However, the year 2016 is poised to be the year when the cloud evolves from a point solution for individual projects to a true piece of shared

Going Digital Where Do We Stand?

infrastructure that is utilised across multiple agencies as needed.

From the government’s perspective, deliver-ing applications and managing information is the most critical and they want to be able to pragmatically choose a delivery model for each project that best balances service level, cost and control. These solutions must deliver a data fabric that allows agencies to keep the right data on-site, move other data to cloud service provid-ers, and take advantage of the tremendous capa-bilities offered by hyperscale cloud providers.

This is because the data fabric allows agen-cies to control, integrate, move, and consistently manage their data across the hybrid cloud, while taking full advantage of the economics and elasticity of the cloud and maintaining control of their data across a hybrid cloud environment.

As a result, advancing the hybrid cloud in 2016 will come down to a data-centric approach that offers government full flexibility to pursue a multi-cloud provider strategy.

Software Defined StorageSoftware defined storage (SDS), with the abil-ity to be deployed on different hardware and supporting rich automation capabilities, will extend its reach into cloud deployments and build a data fabric that spans premise and public clouds. To keep pace with this change – attributed to applications and transformation of legacy applications, businesses and govern-ments alike are considering and embracing technologies such as Virtual Desktop Infra-structure, Cloud and Flash.

While these solutions will help achieve scal-ability, flexibility, and performance, it is essential to keep in mind that legacy infrastructure is here to stay. There are compelling cases for specialised hardware resources, and these will continue to exist. However, government departments have an opportunity to convert the buzz around these government technologies to tangible use cases and revenues – if the right solutions are delivered and the benefits of these solutions are effectively communicated to the market..

he nexus of forces—Social, Cloud computing, Analytics and Mobility (SMAC)—con-tinues to be one of the biggest

drivers of technology adoption in today’s IT environment. While businesses are looking to increase benefits at lower costs, connect-ing to stakeholders in real-time and staying up-to-date with technology, the ‘hype’ of these

SPECIAL INTERVIEW RAM SEWAK SHARMA


Telecom services are

ubiquitous in India and

are consumed not only

in the bustling streets of

a metropolis but also in

the hinterland villages

of the country; yet a lot

remains to be achieved,

says Chairman, Telecom

Regulatory Authority

of India, Ram Sewak

Sharma, in an exclusive

interview with Gautam

Debroy of Elets News

Network (ENN).

Excerpts:

TRAI-ing for Connected

India

RAM SEWAK SHARMA SPECIAL INTERVIEW


ell us about the implementation model of BharatNet across India.

Digital India was conceived by weaving vari-ous strands of communication and informa-tion technology for digital empowerment of citizens and delivering better governance. Establishment of broadband highways forms the first pillar of Digital India. Therefore, timely commissioning of a reorganised version of the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) programme is imperative. The implementa-tion of NOFN was not moving as per plans, so, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had given certain recommendations on ‘Delivering Broadband Quickly: What do we need to do?’ in April 2015. In addition, DoT had appointed an expert committee, which submitted its detailed report recommending rechristening of the project as BharatNet with three implementation models.

Some views regarding the implementa-tion have been raised, and therefore, we at TRAI looked into one more possible alter-nate model “Build-Own-Operate-Transfer” (BOOT) model. The Authority has come out with a Consultation Paper (CP) to discuss issues related to strategies to find the best model of implementation for BharatNet.

How do you rate the performance of Indian telecom services? If you look at the telecommunication services sector in India from the availability-accessibil-ity-affordability-acceptability matrix, I would say, the sector is doing reasonably good. This

sector serves about 103 crore subscribers in the country and tele-density is about 81.4 per cent. Today, telecom services are ubiquitous and are consumed not only in the bustling streets of a metropolis, but also in the hinterland villages of the country. Efforts are being made to con-nect the unconnected. Mobile tariffs for voice calls (about 0.50 per minute) in the country are one of lowest in the world. In recent times, the Authority has taken some proactive steps towards improving the quality of service as well.

If we look at the revenue of the sector, the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of the telecom service sector in the country in the financial year 2014-15 was `1,75,830 crore. The growth rate of the sector in the past two years has been reasonably good. The AGR of telecommunication services sector grew by 12.3 per cent in the financial year 2013-14 and by 11.3 per cent in the financial year 2014-15. There is a lot which is yet to be

Tachieved, but generally speaking, the sec-tor’s performance is satisfactory.

Tell us about differential pricing of data services.Recently, some service providers have offered differential data tariffs to certain contents of certain websites/applications/platforms, i.e. free or discounted tariffs applicable to only these websites and not to others. The stated objec-tive is to allow Internet access to consumers, especially the poor, to certain content on the Internet free of charge.

Wherever differentiated rates are tied to specific content, potentially, both positive and negative effects arise from an economic and regulatory perspective. On one hand, it appears to make overall Internet access more affordable by reducing costs of certain types of content; on the other hand, several negative effects might ensue.

Differential tariffs result in classification of subscribers based on the content they want to access (those who want to access non-partici-pating content will be charged at a higher rate than those who want to access participating content). This may potentially go against the principle of non-discriminatory tariff. There-fore, the potential benefits and disadvantages of such practices have to be weighed in order to determine the regulatory approach. In this background, TRAI has issued a consultation paper on the issue of differential pricing for data services seeking comments from stake-holders on certain issues, these are:(i) Should the TSPs be allowed to have

differential pricing for data usage for accessing different websites, applica-tions or platforms?

(ii) If differential pricing for data usage is per-mitted, what measures should be adopted to ensure that the principles of non-discrimination, transparency, affordable Internet access, competition and market entry and innovation are addressed?

(iii) Are there alternative methods/technolo-gies/business models, other than differ-entiated tariff plans, available to achieve the objective of providing free Internet access to the consumers? If yes, please suggest/describe these methods/tech-nologies/business models. Also, describe the potential benefits and disadvantages associated with such methods/technolo-gies/business models.

Consumers have been

raising the issueof call drops... Based on the comments of the stakeholders, TRAI came to aconclusion that service providers should compensate for their deficiencies...

SPECIAL INTERVIEW RAM SEWAK SHARMA


What is your take on call drops issue?Over the past year or so, consumers have been raising the issue of call drops; they have been complaining that their experience of making voice calls has deteriorated. In order to devise a framework to protect the interests of the con-sumers, TRAI initiated a consultation process in September 2015. Based on the comments of the stakeholders in the consultation process and further analysis, the Authority came to a conclusion that call drops are instances of defi-ciency in service delivery on part of the mobile service providers. To address the inconvenience to the consumers, it was considered appropriate to put in place a mechanism for compensating the consumers in the event of dropped calls. TRAI issued a regulation in October 2015 mandating that every originating service pro-vider providing Cellular Mobile Telephone Ser-vice shall, for each call drop within its network, credit the account of the calling consumer by one rupee, subject to a maximum of three rupees every day. This regulation came into effect from 1 January 2016 and applies to both pre- and post- paid consumers.

What is the reason behind digitisation of cable TV services?Digitisation of cable TV services is aimed to make simply the most out of this widespread functioning network that is already available in almost all parts of India. Digitisation has several benefits – it will allow the subscribers to start obtaining not just cable TV services, but also Internet and wire line telephony services through the same cable; the quality of customer experience regarding their cable TV services will improve; they will be billed for the services that they obtain, so they can choose the channels that they want individually or as a bouquet; and the quality of the signal will be much better. For the broadcasters, the main advantage is that they will transparently know who the subscribers are, thereby getting their just dues on the basis of actual figures. The government will stand to gain through accurate tax collection. In short, digiti-sation promises all-round value enhancements.

Tell us about mobile number portability.Mobile Number Portability means the facility that allows a subscriber to retain his mobile phone number when he moves from one access provider to another in same/another licensed

service area irrespective of the mobile tech-nology and licensed service area or from one cellular mobile technology to another of the same access provider. Earlier, this was allowed only within the same telecom circle, but now all India mobile number portability has been allowed.

Given that the mobile numbers are increasingly becoming an identity tag, this is a very important facility to the consumers who shift their base from one part of India to another.

What is your take on universal access to telecom?Universal access to telecom is one of the important action items of the Digital India pro-

gramme. Telecom is no longer just voice tele-phony; universal data access is needed for our future. The demand for data is growing rapidly and we are trying to ensure through all possible means—wireless and wired—that data reaches our citizens wherever they are.

The BharatNet project is critical to this objective. Once the fibre reaches the gram panchayats, access not just to telecom ser-vices, but all related services will also get enabled.

Spectrum pricing is a major issue. Your views on it.Spectrum used for mobile services has been divided into various bands depending upon its propagation characteristics. Minimum reserve price for spectrum for mobile access services is determined by TRAI based on several factors, such as characteristics of spectrum, spectrum contiguity, block size, ecosystem, and demand and supply. The spectrum price is determined by the market by way of auction. Currently, TRAI is in the process of determining mini-mum reserve price for spectrum in various bands, i.e. 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz and 2500 MHz.

Any new regulation to combat spam or unwanted telemarketing calls? The systems to combat spam that have been put in place by TRAI, i.e. the ‘Do-not Disturb Registry’, special number series for registered telemarketers and the increasing amounts of penalty levied on both unregistered telemarket-ers and telecom service providers is working well. Nothing more is planned in this regard for the present.

CALL DROP Complaints(Up to June 2015)

Airtel

31

RTL

03MTS

02

TATA

01

MTNL

01

Aircel

01

Vodafone

17IDEA

10

BSNL

10

R Com

08

Given that the

mobile numbers are increasingly becoming an identity tag, number portability is a very important facility to the consumers who shift their base from one part of India to another

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SPECIAL FEATURE INTERNET OF THINGS


IoT – The Tomorrow of TECHNOLOGY


It’s not the first time the

world has come across

the concept of Internet of

Things (IoT), but yes the

world was never before

more closely associated

with the idea of IoT,

thanks to the all-pervading

impact of the Internet as it

enters every aspect of our

activities, virtually. With

Prime Minister Narendra

Modi’s every programme

having IoT as an essential

element, the story has just

started unfolding for India,

write Nirmal Anshu Ranjan

& Akanki Sharma of Elets

News Network (ENN)


SPECIAL FEATURE


INTERNET OF THINGS

T he Internet has revolutionised our lives way much beyond we could have ever imagined. Right from ordering food with a

single click, calling a cab using an app or buying virtually everything under the sun online, the Internet has come handy.Apart from our personal lives, the tool has also brought immense benefits to businesses, indus-tries, cities, public sphere and numerous organ-isations, government or otherwise, in terms of bringing pace and efficiency to the operations.

With the Internet making its way into most aspects of human activity, the gap between physical and digital worlds is on the wane. This connectivity—of physical objects, devices, vehicles, buildings and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors and network connectivity—enables various objects to collect and exchange data, thereby springing forth the term “Internet of Things” or IoT.

IoT allows objects to be sensed as well as controlled remotely across existing network of infrastructure, thus creating opportunities for more direct interactions between the physical

world and computer-based systems that result in greater efficiency, accuracy and financial ben-efits. These Internet-connected devices interact with each other with negligible or no human intervention and generate intelligent data that is of immense help to both businesses and govern-ment, as the data thus generated helps them for-mulate people-centric strategies with precision.

Moreover, with the government’s announcement to make India a digital nation and create technology-backed smart cities, the concept of IoT has acquired further relevance. With both campaigns having to do a lot with the Internet of Things in particular, IoT is going to be the in-thing in the years ahead

Although the concept of IoT has existed for over one-and-a-half decades, it took to the centre stage in very recent times. And now, the whole ecosystem in India alone is expected to reach a market potential of $15 billion by 2020. According to Gartner, globally, there will be nearly 26 billion devices on the Inter-net of Things by 2020, while experts estimate that IoT will comprise 50 billion connected objects by then.

Moreover, with the government’s announce-ment to make India a digital nation and create technology-backed smart cities, the concept of IoT has acquired further relevance. With both campaigns having to do a lot with the Internet of Things in particular, IoT is going to be the in-thing in the years ahead.

The Digital India programme, which aims at transforming India into digitally-empowered society and knowledge economy, is expected to provide the required impetus for development of the IoT industry ecosystem in the country. IoT, which is very often also defined as interplay of software, telecom and electronic hardware industry, hold tremendous opportunities for many industries.

IoT for Smart LivingOne area where a lot of IoT activity is set to happen is smart cities. Be it raising smart buildings, optimal consumption of energy, smart transport, smart parking, various security devices for citizens’ safety, smart mechanism for forecasting disasters or opti-mising the use of water through sensors – all of these have IoT in common. With 98 cities being identified for development in the first phase, the pace of deployment of IoT is set to be accelerated.

Among the services being planned are smart lights, which means that streetlights can be controlled from a remote location. It can also reduce and increase illumina-tion, have alternate lights on and off facility, and have a smart meter to check on grid use and control electricity usage. Leveraging the existing infrastructure and improve security levels, several cities have already embarked on installation of cameras on streetlights.

Similarly, use of sensors for Solid Waste Management (SWM) and location intel-ligence would run on IoT-enabled solutions, helping improve the quality of life of citizens. Smartphones, mobile wallets, smart mobility will all be important aspects and play a spe-

Pratul ShroffFounder & CEO eInfochips

IMPACTING DAILY LIVESTechnology at the global level is gravi-tating towards increased deployment of smart devices and Internet of things. With increased push for smart city projects and digital India initiatives from the Indian government, we can envision IoT directly impacting trade

& commerce, business, communica-tions, transport, medicine, and others. Interconnected devices and cloud platforms will greatly impact the daily walks of consumer life. LEVERAGING IOT FOR CLIENTSAt eInfochips, we are working on a few global initiatives on Internet of Things. For instance, we have pioneered RSI (Retail Site Intelligence) with US-based Kroger, using IoT. This will substantially change the way retail sector operates. In healthcare, we have developed an intel-ligent remote drug dispenser for one of the largest generics and speciality phar-maceutical company in the world. We are also working on exciting IoT technologies that impacts ecommerce, medical devices, product companies, industries and others. Our Idea Labs are pushing the envelope in devising solutions that leverage IoT for our clients and ultimately, the end users.



cial role in the new-age cities. Thus, expecta-tions are high, and therefore, a number of companies are also coming up with their IoT solutions for the citizens.

Trusted Farming AideGlobally, this technology has already been implemented in various areas. For instance, there exists a smart irrigation management

system, called “WaterBee”, which is intelligent, flexible and easy to use. It collects data regard-ing the soil content and other environmental factors from a network of wireless sensors to reduce water waste. It is an accurate irrigation scheduling system available at an affordable cost that analyses the data to selectively water

different plots of land based on the need. It is used for a variety of commercial applications, including farms, vineyards and golf courses. The advantages include saving of energy, water and money.

Another example is that of “Z-Trap” device, which helps prevent damaging of crops by Sumitr Tyagi

Founder & COO SparkTG

ENABLING BUSINESSESAt Spark TG, we are developing a turnkey Cloud solution for sending, receiving and saving data from sen-sors. We help businesses to enable their existing devices/equipment/labs to connect with our cloud platform.

We also work on hardware for building IoT solution that connects with Spark TG IoT Cloud. We will soon provide simple APIs so that people will be able to build their own solutions around IoT.

SparkTG’s Cloud platform pro-vides communication over proto-col such as (MQTT, Websockets, RESTFul, etc.). Remote device can communicate over wifi, zigbee, 2G/3G/4G cellular, Bluetooth etc. to our propagator node connected with Cloud. As an example, a simple android-based phone can work as a propagation node for multiple devices in its Bluetooth range and communicate with Spark TG cloud.

Anuj GuptaCEO, Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic

THE NEXT GREAT REVOLUTION IN TECHNOLOGYThe Internet of Things is considered to be the next great revolution in tech-nology. Imagine a world where every object we use has a sensor, allowing it to connect to the Internet, so that it can communicate with each other and provides a world that seems like some-thing out of science-fiction. With the Internet of Things fast approaching,

that world could become a reality very soon. Experts estimate that the IoT market could be worth as much as $1.7 trillion by 2020.

IOT has a growing future in India with the government backing it with full support and big companies are partnering with the government hoping for a better future for all.

BRINGING SOCIAL INNOVATIONIOT is a big initiative taken by the gov-ernment, along with Smart Cities and Digital India campaigns. We at Hitachi believe in the concept of Social Inno-vation for a better tomorrow and are collaborating with all Hitachi group companies and working as one Hitachi to provide state-of-the-art implemen-tation and services for these projects in the time to come. We will be the back-arm for Hitachi in providing IT services such as security and cloud services as security will be a major area to be worried about. Hence, we believe that we are ready to help the govern-ment in these projects in whichever way they would require.

Year 2020

Source: Clarice Technologies

AUTOMOTIVE

$ 202Billion

UTILITIES

$ 36Billion

CONSUMERELECTRONICS

$ 445Billion

HEALTHCARE

$ 69Billion

10 50BillionDevices

1.5 / Person

BillionDevices

8 / Person

Now

IOT IN 2020: PROJECTIONS



using pheromones. The device is used to trap insects and compiles data on the number of different types of insects in the trap. Includ-ing its GPS coordinates, Z-Trap wirelessly transmits the data and also allows farmers to view the types of detected insects.

Another domain where IoT has been used is for protecting the woods. Invisible “Tracck” is a small device that can be covertly placed in trees in protected forest areas to help prevent illegal logging. The devices, which are smaller than a deck of cards, alert authorities when

illegally harvested trees pass within range of a mobile network.

Doing More with IoTOther areas of possible growth include insur-ance sector, where some of the insurance companies in India have started experimenting with IoT, primarily in the automobile insurance space and the healthcare sector, which is grow-ing very rapidly and modernising fast.

In a healthcare scenario, patients can now wear devices that monitor vital signs and com-municate data to medical practitioners. Health-care professionals can configure triggers and events that cause appropriate alerts to be sent to the right doctors.

Embedding intelligence by way of real-time data gathering from gateways and devices and consuming them through busi-ness processes helps businesses achieve not just cost savings and efficiency, but also gen-erate more revenue patterns. Businesses need to overcome several business- and service-related challenges to be able to realise smooth management of varied systems.

In addition to all these, it is interesting to note that not just Digital India, but almost

INDICATING PROMISING FUTUREThe collaboration between the Ministry of Urban Development and the Depart-ment of Electronics and Information Technology indicates promising future with IoT. The outcome of this alliance

can be observed in the form of wide spectrum of programmes to elaborate the awareness and capacities of the IoT in India. Few to name are the upcom-ing smart cities that use IoT device for traffic management, Indian Railways that uses IoT to keep track of the fuel consumption and the healthcare IoT sensors that continually monitor the health of humans.

Many people in India still cannot get the Internet on a consistent basis with reliability problems plaguing many areas. This makes Internet accessibility a formidable challenge in general popula-tion. Even when performance of Inter-net is consistent, bandwidth becomes a serious issue, and since the IoT needs plenty of bandwidth to function properly, this may hinder widespread prevalence of the IoT. India also deals with plenty of challenges regarding its infrastructure. To make the IoT func-tion well, more work first needs to be done to set up support for smart grids,

traffic systems, and technologies that can handle increased data demands, like flash storage. Though challenges still remain, the future of the IoT in India is a promising one. With more time and resources, IoT progress could prove to be impressive on a large scale.

FROM HYPE TO REALITYBeing a leading IT Training organisa-tion, we are planning to launch new programmes that will enable aspirants to learn more about IoT and imple-ment their technical know-how about this revolutionary concept through the hands-on trainings. This is true that IoT is moving from a hype to reality, and we are turning this reality towards the consumers to increase the use of it. Also, it is important that this trend is inculcated in life to consumers, and it is being conceptualised through our IT training company. We are the voice that is making IoT heard through our train-ing and applications.

Sisir KantaTechnical Manager Koenig solutions

BYOD and userdept devices

6%

ComplianceRequirements 7%

External Attacks9%

Access

Management

9%

Security

Threats

38%

Data Primary 28%

3rd Party DataRequests 2%

Other 3%

IoT CHALLENGES

Source: Janco Associates, Inc.

SPECIAL FEATURE


INTERNET OF THINGS

Harshal IngaleCo-founder & Chief Technology Officer (CTO), SpiderG

Vinay Kumar ParathDirector - Commercial & Government Sales, NetApp India & SAARC

FIRST PENETRATION WILL BE IN B2BUnlike western markets, we believe that IoT in India will penetrate first in the B2B space. Consumer IoT will take time given the nature of Indian consumer space. B2B will lead in adoption primarily because of the need for companies to automate and gain visibility into the ‘factory-floors’ which traditionally have been seen as black-boxes by management.

Logistics are expected to get a real boost from IoT devices. IoT will help increase asset utilisation, along with worker productivity by allowing managers to monitor and control processes on the go.

In the long run, IoT devices will help in holistic integration of processes; right from HR to factory floor. This will give immense visibility to management and help them draft effective policies and gain very high profitability.

A PROMISING FUTUREThough challenges still remain in consumer acceptance of the IoT, the future of the IoT in India is a promising one. The government is fully backing the effort to develop better infrastructure, companies are coming out with innovative products,

and industries understand the benefits that Internet of Things (IOT) provides. With more time and resources, IoT progress could prove to be impressive on a large scale.

SpiderG focuses on creating an ecosystem of Web APIs which helps in integrating various B2B processes. So, naturally (indus-trial) IoT fits into our portfolio of offerings.

SpiderG is also planning a first of its kind Cloud platform for (Industrial) IoT devices. This will primarily focus on integrating the software and the hardware infrastructure of any company.

THE DATA CHALLENGEData is the cornerstone of enterprise-wide operations at the Centre, state and local government levels. With the government’s push towards ‘Digital India’, special-purpose clouds and applications will emerge to focus spe-cifically on connecting devices and machines.

This in turn will generate a huge amount of data that will need to be processed and analysed in real time. The sheer volume of data, and the velocity at which it is generated, altered and consumed, will threaten to overwhelm traditional storage archi-tecture. Adding to this, budgets will

never be able to keep pace with data volume, requiring solutions to become more efficient and cost-effective in storing data. An inability to analyse and store data as volume explodes reduces sensor devices to little more than “window dressing” that offers little value to decision makers.

In order to manage stagger-ing amounts of structured and unstructured data, the government needs to put in place a robust stor-age architecture. A tiered storage architecture can help government departments organise sensitivity of information, importance and acces-sibility to data.

every plan unveiled by the Narendra Modi-led government — be it Swachh Bharat, Ganga cleaning — are all intricately connected to IoT. The quickest way for the Ganga Rejuvenation Plan to execute is by installing sensors at the factory discharge points. The Nirbhaya Project, where there is talk of installing GPS devices to be put in public and private vehicles, also depends on IoT mechanism. Similarly, the

government plan to link 2.5 lakh village pan-chayats with broadband connectivity can help roll out village level BPOs, something that is intricately connected with the Internet.

Impediments on WayWith the largescale deployment of networked, intelligent sensor technologies, hundreds of bil-lions of smart sensors and devices will interact

with one another without much human inter-vention, on a Machine-to-Machine (M2M) basis. This will generate an enormous amount of data at an unprecedented scale, providing with information and control of events and objects even in remote physical environments. However, with so much accumulated data, experts believe, it is going to be a major task to keep those safe and secure, away from the



Virender JeetSenior Vice President, Newgen Software Technologies Ltd

HARNESSING THE POWERThough we know that Indian IoT story had a quiet beginning but now it is showing signs of going into mainstream rapidly. Most players in the space are young companies that are developing frameworks to facilitate communication among connected devices, allowing brands and consumers to truly harness the power of IoT.

As per the Government of India, Department of Electronics and Information Technology has made an announcement to create India an IoT Industry of $ 15 billion by 2020. It has been assumed that India would have a share of five to six per cent of global IoT industry by then.

However, we still see some challenges in the consumerisa-tion of IoT as a concept due to many reasons such as Internet connectivity and bandwidth issues, cost of IoT devices and overall infrastructure challenges. The advent of smart and wifi-enabled cities is a first step towards living this dream.

TARGETING TODAY’S NEEDSWithin the last couple of years, IoT has slowly started to pen-etrate markets as businesses and organisations have started con-templating the value that combining IoT within business process management (BPM) programmes could bring to an organisation.

This brings us to analytics, social and mobile capabilities into current processes and the applications that can lead to much desired agility with regard to critical business decisions. Our Intelligent Business Process Suite (iBPS) targets the need of today, combining all the capabilities.

The ultimate goal of business process management is to connect people with the right automated systems and processes to measure effectiveness and to keep up to date. BPM adds value to the IoT by connecting smart objects. Data from devices will need to be ana-lysed and actions will need to be taken based on that data. These actions could trigger alerts or invoke corrective processes.

Arshad Majeed

Executive Vice

President (Global

Delivery), Xavient

Information Systems

A BOOMING MARKET IN INDIAThe convergence of multi-disciplinary facets of the tech-nology ecosystem with IoT (Internet of Things) has been increasing. Internet of things (IoT) is a booming market in India due to the Indian Government’s Digital India pro-gramme. In smart homes, the consumer IoT applications that are fueling growth are smart TVs, smart set-top boxes, smart bulbs, smart switches, etc. IoT as a concept is no longer a vision, but a reality. In fact, we have gone beyond IoT into the era of Web of Systems where devices will be able to com-municate not only via Internet, but also directly through cloud. The Web of Systems will take the idea of collecting data from physical things and trigger actions in the real world. We are now living in a networked society dominated by connectivity and mobility. 4G has already entered India and with that comes advancement of OTT services. India has begun to experiment with video-on-demand content deliv-ered over the Internet, through platforms like Youtube, Hot-star, Zengatv, to name a few. Sincere endeavours are being made to understand what viewers want, how they want to consume their content, and how much they are willing to pay to view that content. Going OTT isn’t an option anymore, it’s a mandate. The future for content providers holds an act of balancing valuable content and providing that at a fair price, to attract audiences and increase revenue.

DIGITISING INDIAAt Xavient, we remain committed to build and upgrade eco-system based on advanced technologies. We are overwhelmed to have been a part of the US chapter of the success story laid out by the implementation of IOT technologies, where the industries and society at large are gaining significantly. India at present is at a cusp of digital revolution and as a committed player, we are open to invest in and partner with organisations to help the government achieve its vision of digitising India.

Conference | Expo

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Parkash Singh BadalChief Minister Punjab

Chief GuestSukhbir Singh BadalDeputy Chief Minister Punjab

Guest of Honour

Co-Programme ChairProgramme Chair

Sarvesh KaushalChief Secretary Government of Punjab

R K Verma SecretaryDepartment of Governance Reforms, Government of Punjab

GovernmentofPunjabinassociationwithEletsTechnomediaisproudtoannounce“ePunjab”-ConferenceoneGovernanceinitiativesintheStateofPunjabinFebruary2016.GovernmentofPunjab is the esteemed “Host Partner” in “ePunjab Summit 2016.”

punjab.eletsonline.com | #elets_PunjabAn initiative by



hands of unscrupulous elements. So, the issue of security has to be addressed by all means in a futuristic manner.

Also, while all the exciting work is happen-ing in the Internet of Things domain, another big worry area is interoperability. With multiple standards in play, it will be a while before the country adopts a single IoT standard. Inciden-tally, this confusion prevails across the globe. The problem compounds as the scale and magnitude of the M2M Internet will be several folds larger than the existing Internet.

Besides, India as a developing country lacks in universal Internet infrastructure across its length and breadth, like many other countries in the Third World. So, for IoT takes off in the right fashion in India, we have to have a robust Inter-net connectivity across the country to serve as the launch pad. However, that doesn’t seem a big concern, of late, as the government has already embarked on an optical fibre network project, christened BharatNet, to connect as many as 2.5 lakh village panchayats by the end of 2016.

Future BrightNotwithstanding these and several other chal-lenges, given the Prime Minister’s resolve to make India a digital country, it is obvious that noth-ing less than IoT will exist in the coming days. IoT being a key feature of his programmes, the domain stakeholders can look forward to brighter

times ahead. Moreover, with the Startup India campaign being announced by the Prime Min-ister recently, it is expected that the demand for Internet of Things to operate these startups will shoot up manifold. So, in the days to come, the firms bringing IoT solutions can look forward to numerous opportunities coming their way.

10 MAJOR Applications

l Monitoring of parking spaces, vehicles and pedestrian levels in citiesl Intelligent and weather-adaptive lighting for streetsl Intelligent roads that send out warnings in the event of traffic jams, accidents, inclem-

ent weatherl Monitoring of supply chain processes in the retail industryl Tracking inventory in a manufacturing plantl Monitoring water levels in rivers, dams and reservoirsl Intrusion detection systems

in homes and officesl Monitoring condition of patients in hospitalsl Smart garbage bins that send signal when pickup is neededl Interactive information kiosks with real time updates

Incentives & Engagement

Capacity Building & Incubation

Human Resource Development

R & D And

Innovations

Demonstration

Centre

1

3

5

2

4

INTERNET OF THINGS

POLICY

STANDARDS

GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE

SUPPORTED BY FIVE PILLARS

Source: Department of Electronics & IT, Ministry of Communications & IT, Govt of India

An initiative by

SPECIAL INTERVIEW DEBASHISH SEN


Affordable Housing in Hi Tech Cities

mart City has created a lot of buzz in the country today and the Government of

India is keenly working on it. How do you view this concept of Smart Cities? We recognise that smart technologies alone will not solve all problems that urban India faces. Moreover, Smart City programme rec-ognises the fact that application of technology can make the life of an average citizen better in many ways. Be it smart parking, smart bus stop, or a Wi-Fi enabling universal access to the digital world, there are areas where a smart intervention can make a difference even while basic urban goals continue to be addressed separately through other missions and projects.

As of now, 98 cities have been selected by the Centre to be

S

As various states join the smart cities race, West Bengal is all set to make extra efforts for ensuring affordable housing. Debashish Sen, Principal Secretary, Urban Development Department, Government of West Bengal and CMD - HIDCO, tells Poulami Chakraborty of Elets News Network (ENN) at length how the State is charting out the smart city course

DEBASHISH SEN SPECIAL INTERVIEW


made ‘smart’. What according to you should be the approach towards affordable housing?There are four smart cities from West Bengal in the list — New Town Kolkata, Bidhannagar, Haldia and Durgapur. All the four have sub-mitted their plans to the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India. While affordable housing is covered under the Prad-han Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) and not under the Smart City programme, we believe a system of cross-subsidisation should be the approach for affordable housing: by charging a marginal incremental amount to HIG housing units in a given project, the LIG/EWS hous-ing units can be made affordable. Besides, digitised online plan sanctions will also ensure that time spent in the process of getting approvals for home projects is reduced and the costs come down. Indeed, New Town is a path-setter in this, and already it has an online building plan sanction scheme in operation, which could be a model for other smart cities.

ICT is the prime tool for establishing a strong base for building a smart city. How are you engaged with ICT players?We have interacted with ICT players at sev-eral levels. There have been brainstorming workshops in collaboration with NASSCOM, AmCham, BCCI and CII as also with major IT players, including IBM, HP, Bosch, Intel,

CISCO, 3M, Siemens, etc. We have evaluated their innovations and are already working on some of the suggestions as a PoC (Proof of Concept). We have also especially banked on residents of smart cities, who are themselves IT experts; such primary stakeholders have given us rare insights about which global practices can or cannot be tweaked according to the local requirements.

Green building devices, smart home tools, smart living solutions and building efficiency systems are some of the primary elements for smart urban housing. How will your department play a role in this regard?After months of consultations with citizen groups, expert technical firms, innovative think tanks and internal brainstorming, all the four proposed smart cities of the State have painstakingly put together a Smart City plan that is specific to them. Broadly, these are categorised into two groups: pan-city solutions and a set of area-based solutions. Since all interventions cannot be spread over the whole cityscape, making the resources thinly spread out, an area of 500 acres or more would be taken up for creating a synergy of smart solutions and these can further be rep-licated in other areas. The pan-city solution, on the other hand, would impact all residents, with eGovernance being an obvious example.

Tell us about the newest projects floated by HIDCO and Urban

Development Department in the State.WBHIDCO is positioning New Town as a smart futuristic planned city where there is a fine work-life balance. Thus, on one hand, there are things like Eco Park, Mother’s Wax Museum, Rabindra Tirtha, Nazrul Tirtha, Urban Eco Village, Swapna Bhor Park for senior citizens, Café Ekante, Ekante Cottages, Utsari Glass Hall, Upasana Griha, Biswa Banga Convention Hall and original sculp-tures and art installations, including road graphics and graffiti walls, all in the public space, and the educational and health hub, financial and legal hub, and the IT hub for generating economic activities, on the other. We have also held Sculptors’ Camp and Art Camps with talented artists to create original designs. Most of all, we are receptive to fresh innovative ideas and are prepared to experi-ment. There is also a 3-acre tea plantation in Kolkata’s New Town, overlooking an exquisite hugely popular tea lounge in the Eco Park.

What according to you will it take to help cities in deploying solutions for modern urban infrastructure?I am sure that no cut-and-paste solution is likely to work. What is needed is an enthu-siastic team consisting of young IT-savvy persons and an expert team of planners and engineers from all walks of life to make team work. A core group of professionals with visions and ownership of the ideas will also be essential.

What do you think about foreign players showing interest in the Indian Smart Cities project?In New Town Kolkata, we formed an advisory group of professors, IT experts and engineers who actually stay in New Town, but have worked all over the world. The group was to evaluate and assess solutions offered by the international players. The reality of the Indian situation cannot be ignored: the social safety network prevalent in developed countries make certain solutions work, which may not always work in our towns. So, while we should not try to reinvent the wheel and look at great foreign-born ideas, we must always temper it with the thought, as it is also often limited to only few islands of urbanscape even in the western world and does not become universal.

We believe a system of

cross-subsidisation should be the approach for affordable housing: by charging a marginal incremental amount to HIG housing units in a given project, the LIG/EWS housing units can be made affordable

SPECIAL FEATURE ENCRYPTION POLICY


To Be or Not To Be?

t is the need of the hour. But how to go about it?And, perhaps, there lies the crux of debate on the proposed National

Encryption Policy. The Government of India’s Department of Information Technol-ogy Ministry (Deity) came come up with a draft National Encryption Policy late last year. But the moment it was put in public domain, it faced severe criticism from netizens and civil society alike, as the draft policy contained some provisions, which were seen as intrusion into the private space of citizens. Eventually, the government was forced to withdraw the draft policy amid huge hue and cry.

The revised drafted National Encryp-tion Policy is, however, yet to be put in the public domain.

Need for PolicyBefore we get to the draft policy, we must look first at what ‘encryption’ and why there is need for an encryption policy.

Encryption is the process of encoding mes-sages or information in a way that only autho-

I

In the face of all-round outcry against the draft National Encryption Policy, the government had to beat a hasty retreat. But can we entirely do away with an encryption policy for the sake of privacy concerns? Souvik Goswami of Elets News Network (ENN) tries to analyse the tricky issue

rised parties can read it. In an encryption scheme, the intended communication information or message, referred to as plain text, is encrypted using an encryption key generated by an algo-rithm, which it turn generates a ciphertext that can be read only when decrypted. In principle, it is possible to decrypt the message without pos-sessing the key, but for a well-designed encryp-tion scheme, large computational resources and skill are required. An authorised recipient can easily decrypt the message with the key, but unauthorised interceptors can’t.

On the other hand, according to the Data Security Council of India, Information Tech-nology (Amendment) Act 2008 provides for encryption under Section 84A, which reads: “The Central Government may, for secure use of the electronic medium and for promotion of e-governance and e-commerce, prescribe the modes or methods for encryption.”

Encryption policy under this section is urgently required as a national policy, since at present encryption is restricted to 40-bits under the telecom licensing policy regime. This level of encryption is weak, and does not promote client confidence, as clients require strong encryption for data protection and

privacy protection. The government, however, has legitimate need to access encrypted data for monitoring of suspected criminals and terror-ists in what is considered as lawful interception. Encryption policy, therefore, requires consid-eration of various technical issues, national security issues, business privacy and interna-tional competitive pressures for the growth of e-commerce and e-governance applications.

Why the Outcry?It is in this context that the Government of India drafted the National Encryption Policy. But it had to be withdrawn following the public outcry.

The draft policy talked about making it man-datory for every citizen to save all digital com-munications, including emails and chats, for a period of 90 days. It had proposed that while citizens and businesses may use encryption technology for storage of data and communica-tion, everyone will be required to store the plain texts of that information for a period of 90 days. Citizens were also required to provide verifiable plain text to law enforcement agencies as and when demanded.

A section of the society saw this as intrusion

ENCRYPTION POLICY SPECIAL FEATURE


into privacy, and the government had to with-draw the draft encryption policy by stating that “relates only to those who encrypt… ordinary consumers of applications do not fall in this domain.” The government, however, added that there is a need for an encryption policy, which would apply to those who are involved in encryption of data.

However, a section of the industry feels that the National Encryption Policy should be about setting up of minimum encryption standards for data protection, penalising organisations and institutions for not implementing high encryption standards, and protecting the data from pilferage and leakage.

Way ForwardEncryption policies have always had an impact on the privacy of individuals and when used by corporations or organisations, it affects their business or trade secrets. Therefore, the govern-ment should also think of reworking on non-existent privacy laws.

Taking into consideration the divergent views as well as the compulsions of the govern-ment, the whole debate boils down to whether the National Encryption Policy is at all needed. But what remains to be seen is as to how the government goes about it while redrafting and then implementing it? What also needs to be seen is how the new policy will do the balanc-ing act in incorporating various concerns from both the industry and citizens at large.

Till that time, the debate continues!

The government has a legitimate need to access encrypted data for monitoring of suspected criminals and terrorists in what is considered as lawful interception, but the people at large feel that such a policy will infringe upon their privacy

Privacy-Security Balance a MustEncryption is an important feature which allows organisations to effectively manage and systematically store all communica-tion. Recently withdrawn draft National Encryption Policy by the government encompassed a lot of aspects from the government point of view, but on cus-tomer and business requirements, there was a major threat to the privacy of data.

According to the withdrawn draft policy, it was mentioned that B2B/ B2C and C2B, sector should use encryption algorithms and key sizes as prescribed by the government. In this age of competi-tion, organisations have their own trade secrets to be guarded from competitors. A weakened encryption scheme and manda-tory storage of encrypted data in its plain text is not advisable.

Furthermore, the draft also said that the government would require users and companies to store plain text and encrypted text pairs for at least 90 days and make them available to law enforcement agencies when they are asked for it. This is technically infeasible for a customer to maintain this information. The government must take note that the knowledge and exper-tise of common citizens may be inadequate to understand the nuances of encryption.

The policy, in its current form, can make Indian information systems vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Privacy and security must go hand in hand. This policy not only weakens the security of the information, but also puts the privacy at greater risk. Sensitive departments of the government should be included under the policy, as these are the organisations that need to be kept secure to enhance national cyber security. Besides, there should not be any specific mandate to use a particular algorithm for encryption with restricted key sizes. It is imperative to have clarity on which online services and online service providers will have to be registered with the government.

Having an encryption policy at SpiderG is necessary because of the nature of our busi-ness. As SpiderG deals with business transactions of companies, which have a direct financial impact, we have put in place state-of-the-art encryption processes.

At SpiderG, while encrypting, we take care of below-mentioned essential requirements needed for any business or financial transaction to be valid online:1) Confidentiality of information - Ensuring that only the parties involved in the transac-

tion should be aware of it2) Non-repudiation - Ensuring that no party involved in the transaction can deny

their part3) Integrity of data - Ensuring that data transmitted over the network is not corrupted in

any manner We use a strong 256-bit SSL encryption to transmit data over the Internet. This ensures the

confidentiality of the data as it is practically impossible to make sense of this data. A combina-tion of user’s phone number, a mobile app and passwords are used to authorise transactions.

Data security and confidentiality is of prime focus for us. We have architected our business in a way to ensure that our customer’s data is kept safe in all cases.

Harshal Ingale Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer (CTO), SpiderG


Natural Disasters have seen a recurrent

incidence in India. However, governments

can certainly take measures to mitigate

their devastating impact on life

and property, and technology can play a significant role in

minimising the impacts of disasters, writes Gautam Debroy of

Elets News Network

ICT to Mitigate Nature’s Fury

henever a natural disaster takes place, we term it as “God’s fury”, because it is beyond human control.

However, a proper use of Information & Com-munications Technology (ICT) tools can help us give an early indication of such catastrophe and help in minimising the damage. Be it earth-quake, flood, drought or tsunami, ICT can surely be used to mitigate all forms of natural disaster.

Manipur CrisisRecently, Manipur was struck by a 6.7 inten-

sity earthquake, killing at least eight people and injuring hundreds others. Tremors were felt almost in all the north-eastern states, West Bengal and even in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Thanks to the communications tech-nologies, as soon as the earthquake struck

WManipur, information reached the national capital and Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh to take stock of the situation; Union Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha chaired a meeting of the National Crisis Management Committee in Delhi and took stock of relief operations; and the Chief Secretary of Mani-pur also participated in the meeting through video-conferencing.

Similarly, the Ministry of Home Affairs was also coordinating with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the State Government and the related Central Government departments as well as agencies concerned for providing all necessary help. All this could happen on account of availability of various technology tools.

“As soon as we came to know about the earthquake, we rushed NDRF personnel to

Imphal and carried rescued operations. We also asked BSNL to take all steps to maintain the telecom services,” told Union Minister of Development of North Eastern region (DoNER) Jitendra Singh to Elets News Network.

Mitigating CrisisWell, it’s not that use of technology is new in disaster management or it could fully control such situations. But it is indeed essential that technology is made full use of while fire-fighting a catastrophic situation. Although ICT cannot prevent disasters from happening, it can certainly come handy for predicting and preparing better to mitigate the crisis.

“Disaster management is the discipline that involves preparing, warning, supporting and rebuilding societies when natural or man-made disasters occur. It is the continuous process through which all individuals, groups and communities manage hazards in an effort to avoid or minimise the impact of disasters,” feels Major General Anurag Gupta, Adviser (Operations & Communication), NDMA.

With a view to handling such adversities better, the Central Government has set up sev-eral bodies and authorities, and NDMA is one such crucial body set up under the Disaster Management Act of 2005.

DISASTER MANAGEMENT SPECIAL ARTICLE

SPECIAL ARTICLE


DISASTER MANAGEMENT

The Government StrategySet up under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, consisting of a National Executive Committee (NEC) of Secretaries to assist the Authority, it takes measures for the prevention of disaster, its mitigation and capacity build-ing for better preparedness for dealing with calamitous situations. The authority also acts as a central nodal agency for the states in view of any disaster.

“Early warning systems, television and radio broadcasting, web portals, long-distance education and telecommunications have also a role to play in disaster mitiga-tion. Typhoons, hurricanes, forest fires, oil

spills, tornadoes, tsunamis and other natural disasters that travel distances are by their very nature able to give advance notice to signifi-cant populations of potential victims that lie in their path. The need for good early warning systems and signals, and prompt and effective transmission to vulnerable populations is one of the actions that the global community needs to commit to and invest in. Investing in making such information available is worth it compared to the results it can give,” believes Major General Gupta.

“The 14th Finance Commission has rec-ommended an allocation of `61,220 crore to the State Disaster Relief Fund to all the states, comprising central share as well as state’s share. States can use this alloca-tion for 12 notified natural calamities, viz. avalanche, cyclone, cloudburst, drought, earthquake, tsunami, fire, flood, hailstorm, landslide, pest attack and cold wave/frost. In addition, 10 per cent of the annual fund allocation of the SDRF may be used for localised state-specific natural disasters,” Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said in Parliament.

For the year 2015-16, the allocation in SDRF was `11,081 crore, out of which `8,512.50 crore was the share from the Cen-tral Government and `2,568.50 crore was share of the state governments.

“Funds are also being provided in the Min-istry of Home Affairs’ budget for NDMA, NDRF, NIDM, Civil Defence & Home Guard and Fire Services, as these institutions are working in the field of disaster management,” he added.

Well, in spite of all such preparedness and attention, disasters do take place causing major damage to the life and property. So, there is a need to keep devising ways on how technology can prove to be a game changer to mitigate disasters.

Thanks to the availability of various communications technologies, during the recent earthquake in Manipur, the State remained fully connected with the Central Government, other states and the disaster management agencies

5 NATURAL DISASTERS that Hit India in Last 12 Years

Kashmir Floods (2014): A major natural disaster took place in Jammu & Kashmir in September 2014. The heavy and continuous rains lashed the city of Srinagar and caused disastrous floods claiming thousands of lives.

Uttarakhand Flash Floods (2013): It’s hard to forget the havoc created by the killer floods. Heavy and sudden rains in the region caused destructive landslides in the State killing thousands

of people, mostly Badrinath-Kedarnath pilgrims.

Bihar Floods (2007): The August flood of 2007 in Bihar was described by the United Nations as the worst flood in the “living memory” of Bihar. The flood affected 19 districts of the State killing hundreds of people and rendering several homeless.

Mumbai Floods (2005): Thousands of people died in the flood that took place in the month of July then. The renowned Film City

was severely affected with a large number of people being stranded on the roads and several losing their homes.

The Indian Ocean Tsu-nami (2004): Occurring in the month of December, it was one of the worst natural disasters in India. It took place when the people were celebrating Christ-mas on the beaches of southern India. The tsunami raised the Indian Ocean following a major earthquake, which had its epicenter in the ocean bed.

CORPORATE EFFTRONICS SYSTEM


W hat smart cities are like? Well, that can be best summed up in the lines of Nobel laureate Rabindra-

nath Tagore’s poem, “Where the mind is without fear”. A smart city should be safe, secure, healthy, pleasant, efficient, learnable, affordable, sustain-able and dynamic, so as to ensure a comfortable and peaceful life for the citizens.

Various sensors like temperature, humidity, rainfall, traffic, lighting, power consumption, water distribution, etc., can generate lots of useful data about the cities. In olden days, all this data was captured in silos, but now using Internet of Things (IoT) framework, we can bring all this data to a common platform. Using Big Data and Ana-lytics multidimensional analysis can be carried to give better insights. These bring better living, resource conservation, economic development, new business models and better citizen services.

Efftronics Systems Private Limited, a product development company, has developed various nuts and bolts of IoT. In its 30 years of journey, various case studies have been implemented to provide better citizen services.

Water DistributionThe major problems relating to water distribu-tion are bad quality, limited supply, uneven distribution and wastage. Various sensors are used to capture parameters like flow, level and chlorine content at various stages of water dis-tribution. This data is being pushed on to the cloud. Using analytics, we can identify various problems in water distribution system. This data can be shared with various stakeholders like citizens, government officials and leaders using mobility. In a project executed in Vijay-

Smart Living in New-Age CitiesAcceleration of urban growth is causing many challenges and rendering cities unliveable. Statistics show that more than 50 per cent of the world population will move to cities by 2050. All this leads to greater emphasis on smart, sustainable cities, writes Dasari Anvesh, Project Manager (R&D), Efftronics System Private Limited

Efftronics Systems Private Limited, a product development company, has developed various nuts and bolts of IoT. In its 30 years of journey, various case studies have been implemented to provide better citizen services

awada municipality, the water wastage had been reduced from thirty per cent to nine per cent.

Road TransportationRoad transportation in cities is very chaotic and unsafe, leading to a sudden spurt in the number of accidents. To improve this system, an Intelligent Traffic System is envisaged for the smart cities.

Using cameras, signal timings can be adjusted to better handle the current traffic densities. Various violations can be identified like red light jumping, speed violation, driving in the wrong lane, etc.

Using the same cameras, when a car number is entered, the software can search through all these cameras and provide the route in which the vehicle has traversed. These cameras can also cal-culate current traffic info at various junctions. The software can disseminate this data through vari-able message signboards, mobile apps, etc. Every user can be informed about the traffic and he can plan alternative routes for efficient traveling.

RailwaysEfftronics products like Data Loggers developed for railways have brought in cultural change in the operations and maintenance of signaling system there. This product has become a black box for railways. Within minutes of a serious accident, involving signaling system, reason could be found out with evidence. Accident enquiries, which used to take weeks, could be completed now in few hours with the help of this product. Wrong operations by the Station Master and shortcuts by signal maintainers are reduced drastically by daily monitoring through Data Logger System. This system has been installed in more than 6,000 stations in the Indian Railways through the length and breadth of the country.

EnvironmentEnvironment is getting affected due to urbanisa-tion and cities are getting increasingly polluted. Recent Chennai floods have clearly shown the catastrophic impacts of urbanisation. Smart environment can monitor various weather, pol-lution parameters in the cities. It can provide var-ious alerts about the pollution. It can also predict the flooding effects based on rainfall and the GIS information of the drainage systems. These can give early warnings to the various stakeholders.

These are only some of the smart solutions that Efftronics offers. Similarly, various other solu-tions like Smart Street Lighting, Smart Parking, Smart Buildings, Smart Utilities, etc., will make cities more efficient and liveable.

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CORPORATE NIRAV SHAH


Solutions thatMake Systems Work

rom your vast experience spanning over 450 projects, what kind of

a Common Operating Picture (COP) you envisage in the context of Indian cities?A Common Operating Picture for the Indian cities will include a multitude of information. It will begin with a base map as a framework (aerial photography or satellite imagery). It will include information, such as:

Parcel Fabric: It is a complete picture of land ownership in the city. Putting together a parcel fabric sometimes leads to higher tax rev-enue as it discovers land parcels that were either

not being taxed at all or not being taxed appro-priately. Parcel fabric allows an official to search for all parcels larger than a certain size, which is key to economic development activities. They can further refine this search by reviewing the available infrastructure as part of COP.

Utilities Infrastructure: Having access to your infrastructure on-demand is imperative from operations point of view. Knowing where your assets are and analysing the trends for these assets helps one manage demands more efficiently. COP helps officials review their network. For example, if a water main breaks, they will be able to trace the network and know exactly which two valves will shut the water off, and the way to reroute the distribution system to allow for quick service recovery. They can

also review loss (in developed countries loss is less than five per cent, while in India it could be as high as 30 per cent).

Public Safety: Providing public safety information, such as crime and fire incidents, in a COP allows the officials to review the occurrences. Police officials are able to conduct incident analysis looking at the trends, and even predicting the next potential target by studying the journey to crime. They are able to review the heatmap (map reflecting where the crime is concentrated) that allows them to increase patrolling in an area. Similarly, when a fire occurs, firefighters are able to know ahead of time, information about the structure of the building and floor plans, etc.

Public Works: Providing asset informa-

F

EI Technologies, LLC offers solutions that make systems function smoothly both in traditional cities as well as in smart cities globally, says Nirav Shah, President of the company. Shah, in an interaction with Elets News Network (ENN), also underlines the need to make authorities accountable using technology tools

Nirav Shah, PresidentEI Technologies, LLC

NIRAV SHAH CORPORATE


tion, such as age, material, condition etc., for streets, signs, lights, etc. is an important tool. This allows the officials to better manage their assets and look at trends for recall or problems due to a specific material, etc. It even allows us to find out issues of refuse collection that is linked to a specific driver route.

A number of initiatives have been undertaken by government agencies in the areas of Disaster Management, Smart Cities, Land Administration, Utilities, etc. In what ways does EI Technologies dovetail with the ongoing efforts?At EI Technologies, we focus on efficiency that also means avoiding duplication. Gov-ernment agencies in India have various tools at their disposal for Public Works, Land Administration, Disaster Management, Utilities, etc. But often the problem is that none of these tools talk to each other. So, what we have is “silos” of information, not integrated with other systems. This prevents users from “connecting the dots”, which is the most important piece in today’s informa-tion overload age. We put together geospa-

tial systems that are tightly integrated with other systems, such as land administration, utilities, public works, etc. By providing a solution that works with other systems as well, we are able to add value to their exist-ing systems while allowing them to make better decisions and faster.

Being a leading member of the Smart Cities Infrastructure Trade Mission to India, would you like to share in brief the kind of Smart City infrastructure that exists in the world’s leading cities?Some leading cities in the world are imple-menting the smart cities infrastructure. They are keeping geospatial technology at the heart of their implementation, because more than 95 per cent of information a city manages involves the location component. One of our clients, York Region in Canada, had an issue with wastewater discharge where they had leaking pipes that resulted in flooding of pumps when there was an instance of snow melt or heavy rain. Conventional wisdom was to build a new pump station that would have cost close to $100 million. Instead, we

worked with them to create a solution where they put flow meters in sewer pipes and we took real-time readings for snow depth, tem-perature, etc., and compared the flow in pipes with what is known as dry weather genera-tion flow. This allowed us to pinpoint exactly which pipes were leaking, and by replacing those pipes, the problem was resolved at a fraction of the cost.

How does real-time situational awareness help in smart governance of cities?Real-time situational awareness is an important piece of the puzzle in the governance of a city. For example, providing Citizen Engagement tools, such as a Mobile App, allows the officials to gather information from the public about crime, street improvement, etc. This informa-tion is automatically categorised and sent to appropriate divisions for action. Police is able to respond to the crime in a quicker manner. By integrating 911 services or a similar system, we are able to see whether the first responders are located in the proximity of an incident, and mobilise response. By looking at traffic pat-terns, we are able to re-route firefighting equip-ment, so they can reach seconds earlier, saving lives and property, and much more.

What are the key critical hurdles you feel dot the implementation of the ambitious Smart Cities programme as envisaged by the Government of India?In our experience, it is never the technology that is the hurdle but always the people. Very often, we keep solving problems that arise due to turf battles between divisions – this could be a number of things, including who has control over what data, what technology to use, communication or lack thereof, mistrust between organisations, etc. We have helped numerous agencies build consensus around technology, governance (who has control over what), functionality, operation and maintenance issues. Providing examples of successful organisations, demonstrating func-tionality and putting together a governance framework that allows inputs from various divisions helps bridge some of the differences. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this. As India embarks on the ambitious 100 Smart Cities programme, we must allow each city to find its own sweet spot.

It is never the technology

that is the hurdle but always the people. Very often, we keep solving problems that arise due to turf battles between divisions... We have helped numerous agencies build consensus around technology, governance, functionality, operation and maintenance issues...

CORPORATE PRAKASH B RANE


Taking Government Services to CitizensThere may be services and services targeting the welfare of the masses, but time-bound delivery of services using a judicious blending of ICT and Process Reforms is what would make it meaningful, says Prakash B Rane, Managing Director, ABM Knowledgeware Ltd, in an interaction with Elets News Network (ENN)

ABM Knowledgeware claims that it is delivering over 20 million eGovernance

services per year. Can you elabo-rate on that?ABM is a category leader in e-municipality space in India with several states selecting ABM for state-wide rollout of e-municipality project. These projects deliver several G2B and G2C services. Municipal processes, which are re-engineered and automated by us, are mainly in the revenue-centric and citizen-centric processes. Some of such prominent processes are Property Tax, Water Charges, Licences, Town Planning, Pay-ments/ Collections through various channels like portals, kiosks, mobiles, pay cards, issu-ance of various NOCs, certificates, etc.

eGovernance is defined in various ways. But, we believe that “eGovernance is all about Citizens, Citizens are all about Services, Ser-vices are meaningful only if provided in a time-bound manner, and time-bound deliv-ery of services is possible only by blending ICT and Process Reforms”.

Is mGovernance gradually edging out eGovernance tools? Are you offering/ planning to offer some solutions there?mGovernance is a vehicle to deliver services in a more convenient manner and with ease. eGovernance provides the vital backbone for making these services ‘complete and end-to-end’. With falling prices of smartphones, bandwidth availability and surge in pen-etration of mobiles in the country, mobile is turning out to be a powerful device for delivering government services.

However, the convenience offered by mobile depends on the nature of service.

So, while it is correct to say that mobile has reduced the need to use service delivery channels, like walk-in facilitation centers or government offices, it will not be correct to say that mGovernance will edge out eGover-nance. Both compliment each other.

ABM offers eGovernance solutions, with many services offered online and on mobile, e.g. enquiring the status of applications, query of dues and making online payments, search-ing and viewing any registration details, filling RTI query and checking the response received, clicking a photo and uploading through GPS to update the progress of building construc-tion or any building permission, etc.

Digital India programme is an ocean of opportunities for IT service providers. What are your views about it?Digital India is a very comprehensive pro-gramme, which will streamline the ongo-ing programmes with sharper focus on the desired outcome. From execution viewpoint, Digital India has nine pillars — Broadband

Highway, Universal Connectivity to Mobile Services, Public Access to Internet, Early Harvest programmes, Information for All, IT for Job, Electronics Manufacturing to target ‘Net Zero’ imports by 2020, eGovernance and eKranti, i.e. electronic delivery of services.

One can safely assume that once the Digital India programme gains momentum, it will offer immense opportunities to IT services companies, as government depart-ments will start rolling out RFPs to execute projects. Due to deeper penetration of Inter-net and broadband, delivery of citizen/busi-ness services will become easier and cheaper.

What are the major challenges faced in expediting eGovernance?There are several challenges faced by the administration and IT companies, who want to be part of this ambitious Digi-tal India mission. NASSCOM has been focussing on these aspects for some time now. On the ground, the enthusiasm of IT companies to participate in government tenders is waning. Adequate bidders do not participate in tenders due to lack of balanced conditions of RFPs. The appetite of administration to take bold and inno-vative decisions carrying risk of making bonafide mistakes is also reducing. This, in turn, is affecting project conceptualisa-tion, finalisation and execution. This may encourage eGovernance projects, which do not focus on vital aspects like BPR, thorough automation of back-end pro-cesses, legacy data sanitisation and insti-tutionalisation of IT. This can lead to shift in focus on low hanging fruits, like some mobile apps or front-end based online services without an automated back-end. This needs to change.

8

SPECIAL FEATURE BADDI


The success story of Baddi, a small town in the hill state

of Himachal Pradesh, is the one that every state in

the country is striving to emulate. A non-descript

town not long ago, today it is a leading industrial and

pharmaceutical hub in the country with biggest brands

in the market vying with each other to set up and

expand in the area, writes Priya Yadav of Elets News

Network (ENN)

B

Baddi Shines as the Pharma Capital of India

arely 40 kms away from Le Cor-busier’s legacy of Chandigarh, the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh industrial belt, as it is officialy

referred to, is now home to country’s leading pharma, FMCG, manufacturing and IT companies.

The blueprint of this amazing success story was laid over a decade ago when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government sanctioned a massive tax incentive package in 2003 paving way for the small town to rise from its obscu-rity to present status of fame and glory.

It’s true that the shifting of major industries to this area has not helped improve the basic infrastructure of roads, connectivity, etc., but that has not deterred the big companies from setting up base here.

The town still has what the industry needs the most – adequate power supply, a kind of rarity in our country, proximity to country’s capital, New Delhi and Chandigarh, Amrit-sar as close neighbours. In addition, it can boast of a peaceful industrial climate.

A journey down the laneThe first units set up base here more than two decades ago- in 1991 and since then it has emerged as Asia’s largest pharmaceutical hub. It has nearly 2500 factories belonging to lead-ing textile companies, pharma companies and FMCG and is credited with generating an annual turnover of `60,000 crore.

With its massive development, the small town alone accounts for over 85 per cent of total investment of Himachal Pradesh with

SPECIAL FEATURE


BADDI

nearly `14,000 crore investment made in the area in the past two decades. It has also the credit of employing one of three persons engaged in Himachal’s medium and large industries. Its importance to the hill State can be gauged from the fact that the town chips in half of the state’s total revenues generated from industries.

There is hardly any doubt about the fact that the tax holiday scheme approved by the Vajpayee Government in 2003 gave a major push to the area, yet majors like Vardhman Textiles Ltd had already set up factories here, a decade before the centre handed out sops to Himachal Pradesh. The sops included five years of exemption of income tax and 10 years of central excise. Ever since, getting the tax holiday extended has been a major politi-cal issue with successive governments.

The stakes are high for each political party and it is for no reason. Baddi is home to biggest

players in the market. For the pharmaceutical giant, Abbott, Baddi is largest branded generic manufacturing site. And Abbott is not an iso-lated case. Baddi is India’s unofficial pharma capita. Pharma giants like Cipla, Cadila, Unichem, Dr Reddy’s, Torrent and Glenmark have housed factories here. The town’s contri-bution to the total turnover of pharma compa-nies is more than significant and only growing.

For instance, Unichem’s first factory in the area began production 25 years ago and now it has 36 acre campus in Baddi which houses its four units that chip in over 25 per cent of the company’s gross revenues. Like Vardh-man, Unichem too set up base here much before the tax exemption era kicked in.

The other side Baddi is not just about pharma manufac-turing, it also boasts of packaging, textiles,

food processing and engineering units. It is estimated that more than `10,500 crore of investment has been made in the district of Solan, where Baddi falls, from 2003 to 2014.

The uncertainty over tax exemption to the industrial town not withstanding, the State Government is hoping that big majors will not quit the region just because there are no more exemptions.

Vardhman, which is among the earliest settlers in the region, now has nine units here in its 330 acres campus– which includes four spinning, two processing, two weaving and one garmenting. of the total revenue of the company, over 25 per cent is generated here, it is estimated. The company is still investing in the area and expanding its footprint.

It is not just the surplus power availability in the region that helped its development, but also cheaper land rates. Industry majors acknowledge that it is not tax exemptions that matter, but also availability of land, power, water – all of which are critical resources for setting up industries.

The setting up of industry in the foothills

has given an economic impetus to the entire region with its impact felt on the real estate sector as well. Property rates in the tri-city of Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali have shot up following development of Baddi. A decade ago the connectivity to the tri-city was not something to be proud of. However, domestic airlines now have stepped up oper-ations in the area, with more than five flights daily between Chandigarh and Mumbai, for which Baddi takes a major credit.

The investment destination Back in the pharma sector, major investments are still happening with pharmaceutical com-panies considering it a place for good invest-ment. Alkem Laboratories is pumping `60 crore in its new formulations plant at Baddi, while Unichem Labs is already operating a betalactum plant here.

USV Limited has an investment plan of `80 crore for its manufacturing facilities in the area, while majors like Glenmark Phar-maceuticals Ltd, Dr Reddy’s Ltd and Indoco Remedies have a `25 crore tablets, creams, medicated toothpaste facility in the area. Bangalore based Bal Pharma too has a `20 crore tablets and capsuling facility in the area.

Baddi has multi national companies like Colgate, Palmolive, Procter and Gamble, Hindustan Unilever, Cadburys, Johnson & Johnson, which have set up manufacturing facilities here.

India’s leading corrugated box manufac-turing group Horizon Packs has also set up their packaging unit Monad Technologies Pvt. Ltd. at Baddi.

Promed, Delhi based entity is planning to invest `25 crore in Baddi by setting up a facility here even as Hyderabad based Pulse Pharma is pumping `6 crore in the area. Morepan Labo-ratories has big plans as well, and began two units at `50 crore and `60 crore, and is further expanding with `20 crore biotech research project with US collaboration.

It’s true that the shifting of major industries to this area has not helped improve the basic infrastructure of roads, connectivity, etc., but that has not deterred big companies from setting up their base here


OFFBEAT

Thiruvananthapuram Central station in the

State of Kerala has set a benchmark for a ‘smart’ railway station in terms

of modern amenities, efficient services and cleanliness. A report

by Arpit Gupta of Elets News Network (ENN)

W hat all modern amenities are required in a world-class railway station? Or what makes a railway sta-tion ‘smart’? Passenger-

friendly services. That’s it!Some of the essential facilities include

automatic escalators, audible announcements, CCTV, automated ticket vending machines, drinking water facility, cleanliness, etc. And, all these facilities are available at Thiruvanan-thapuram Central Railway Station. Passengers of all age groups, especially senior citizens, will certainly experience user-friendly facilities here.

If an elder man, woman or handicapped needs a wheelchair at the entrance of the station or an escalator at Platform No.1 to reach any other platform, he/she would be immediately provided the same. In line with ‘Touch and Feel’ concept, escalators for physically challenged and senior citizen have been deployed at the station, which makes it a smart station in true sense.

Besides, cleanliness in every nook and corner of the station is something anybody would have an appreciation for. The platforms remain neat and clean because ‘safai karamcharis’ do dusting and mopping of the station area multiple times a day. Adequate number of dustbins here and there also help keep the station clear of used plastic bottles and wrappers.

Thiruvananthapuram Station Manager Pro-modh P Shenoi adds that although the railway administration is responsible for cleanliness of

the station and upkeep of amenities, it is not possible without citizens’ participation.

Smartness quotient goes higher when one spots automated ticket vending machines installed at the station to reduce burden on ticket windows, adding to the ease of passengers, and CCTV cameras installed at strategic points at the station keep suspicious activities at bay.

In terms of passenger movement, Thiru-vananthapuram Central is the largest and busiest railway station in the State. It is not

only an important railway hub of the Southern Railways but also one of the profitable stations under the zone.

At present, as many as 31 pairs of mail, express and superfast trains, and three pairs of passenger trains originate from Thiruvanan-thapuram Central Railway Station. Besides, as many as 11 pairs of mail, express and super-fast trains, and eight pair of passenger trains passes through the station. The station handles about two lakh passengers every day, a sizeable number of them being daily commuters.

It is also a terminating point for the pro-posed Chennai-Bangalore-Thiruvanantha-puram High Speed Rail (HSR) corridor and the proposed Thiruvananthapuram-Mangalore High Speed Rail corridor.

In December 2006 Rail Budget, it was announced to convert Thiruvananthapuram Central station into a world-class one. The foundation stone for expansion and moderni-sation of station was laid by former Union Min-ister for Railways Lalu Prasad.

Meera Sanyal, Chairperson - Urban Develop-ment Committee, Indian Merchants’ Chamber, asserts that the amenities at Thiruvananthapuram Central Railway Station are efficient enough to tag it ‘smart’. “I am impressed with Thiruvanan-thapuram station. It is spotless, and has disabled and senior friendly escalators that make it a truly smart station,” says Sanyal.

Thiruvananthapuram Central A Truly ‘Smart’ Railway Station

TRACKING the Pastl Thiruvananthapuram Central is the main railway station in the city of Thiru-vananthapuram (formerly Trivandrum) in the State of Keralal Thiruvananthapuram division was formed on 2 October 1979, carving out of Shornur-Cochin Harbour Terminus section from the erstwhile Olavakkot division and Ernakulam–Trivandrum-Kannyakumari section of Madurai divisionl The building of the railway station is one of the landmarks of Thiruvanantha-puram city

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